


The Course of True Love

by dechagny



Series: Espressaroma [2]
Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama & Romance, F/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2018-10-12 17:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10495902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dechagny/pseuds/dechagny
Summary: Six months on from the wedding, Victoria Hanover and William Lamb-Melbourne are finding success in their business and their romance is flourishing. But things are changing fast. The course of true love never did run smooth and they're about to discover just what that means as they juggle business with pleasure.





	1. June

The doors to Espressaroma had to be wedged open with chairs.

Beyond the weary mutterings of customers was the low humming of the oscillating fans. The metal figures slowly moved their heads from side to side, succeeding in nothing more than moving the hot air further around the tables, tricking the guests to thinking the heat was dispersing. One customer's hair could be seen getting frizzier by the second, the poster on the wall explaining the difference between a latte and a cappuccino was curling at the edges, and a hot cup of coffee hadn't been served in days. The heatwave had even caused Mr Horrick's usual bunch of carnations to bow their heads under the stuffy atmosphere.

Dash was languid beneath one of the fans, snoozing, only sitting up to be fussed over when someone walked by him. Unfortunately for the adoring dog, most people were too hot and bothered to lean down further than the height of their waists. He whimpered and resigned himself to an afternoon of uninterrupted slumber.

The mini flower garden to the back of the shop had bloomed into life; the marigolds were a shimmering gold, the peonies grew in gentle shades of pink, the soft butter-yellow daffodils caught the sunlight and glowed, and the lavender's royal purple colour and alluring scent attracted the bees and butterflies. Daisies grew in the cracks in the ground and the forget-me-nots bloomed vivid blue in the window box. The roses were coming in pure red whilst the sweet peas were almost the colour of a peach. Above the back door was a hanging basket in which tomatoes were beginning to weigh heavy on their vines. Even the large plant pots on each front entrance to Espressaroma had freesias that were growing into the prime of their lives.

Victoria's singing travelled into the shop from the open back door as she pruned and watered the plants. Her smile grew wider whenever the water from the watering can dripped on to her toes thanks to her new open-toed sandals – a work hygiene violation she was sure, but that didn't stop her from wearing them. For a moment, she forgot that customers were only a few feet away and sang louder, out of key, and with great enthusiasm.

Inside, Dash lifted his head at the sound of her voice. Mrs Jenkins and Nancy Skerret looked at one another and said in unison, “he comes home today,” before sighing and going back to work; Skerret arranging a bouquet and Mrs Jenkins grinding a bag of coffee beans.

The two women had been employed two months ago, in April. Nancy Skerret was a local girl from South London: young, polite to customers, and a little cheeky. She had an air of common London charm that came as a welcome relief to some customers who felt put off by Victoria and Melbourne's own dialects and mannerisms. Skerret was a girl who preferred to be called by her last name, felt right at home speaking to customers, and enjoyed the dual business and dual responsibilities that came with it.

Mrs Jenkins' welsh lilt would remind you that this was the proper form of address for her – professional and respectful. She was there out of necessity; she was there to do a job, get paid, then go home. Making friends was not a priority and Skerret had learned this far too quickly when she attempted to talk about family with her – a private woman, Skerret had learned. Private and rude. Mrs Jenkins occasionally enjoyed a gossip on her break, eavesdropping on any conversation she could as she pretended to read the newest edition of _Heat_ magazine.

Today she gave a customer a small smile when he asked to speak to the manager. She begrudgingly went outside to the flower garden where Victoria was on a step ladder, picking the tomatoes.

“There's someone here who would like to speak with you, Miss Victoria.”

Victoria looked down at Mrs Jenkins with a broad beam and handed her the wicker basket half full with the ruby fruit. “Thank you, Mrs Jenkins, do tell them I'll be right there.”

“Yes, Miss.” Mrs Jenkins turned her nose up at the basket and strode back inside the shop.

True to her word, Victoria was close behind and trying to dust the soil from her dungarees as she went, still smiling.

“Oh, Mr Connor! How wonderful to see you again,” she exclaimed from behind the counter. “How may I help you today? How is your mother?”

“It's my mother that I've come to talk to you about actually,” he told her. “She turns eighty in a few weeks and I was wondering if you did private functions here? You know how she adores this place.”

“We haven't done private functions before,” Victoria admitted. “But leave your number with me. My partner comes back today so we can discuss it and give you a call back by tomorrow. What kind of private function were you thinking?”

Mr Connor rooted around his jacket pocket for a pen and a scrap piece of paper, revealing the sweat stains under his arms. “You know, coffee and cake, a flower arranging class, nothing too taxing for an eighty-year-old.”

“It certainly sounds doable,” she told him. “Thank you for dropping by and considering us for your party.” She slipped the paper into her breast pocket when he handed it to her.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Mr Connor assured her. “I look forward to hearing from you. Enjoy your day and tell Mr Melbourne that I hope he had a wonderful holiday, won't you?”

He went away again with a slight skip in his step and whistled as he walked, showing off another sweat patch on the small of his back. He waved through the window at Victoria as he disappeared around the corner on his way back to work.

Victoria now occupied herself with crushing ice, the cold making her fingers numb whilst the rest of her perspired under the heat. Still, she hummed a compilation of songs as she did, watching Mrs Jenkins clear an empty table out of the corner of her eye. On the other side of her, Victoria could see Skerret topping up the water buckets for flowers that had already been arranged and wrapped in their bouquets. Victoria felt her smile grow once more as she remembered the broken and battered shop she had bought a year ago. It was a far cry now from what it had been back then with its fresh new interior, polished floors, and windows and walls that weren’t covered in chewing gum and graffiti. Or at least, the shop _had_ been free from chewing gum.

“Oi! Get out of it, you stupid fools!” Mrs Jenkins cried, waving her fist towards the group of young boys who were laughing and running away from the scene of the crime. “The bloody cheek of it, I tell ya.” Mrs Jenkins let out an exasperated sigh as she carried empty glasses and plates behind the counter to be washed. “Like I needed another thing to do.”

The customers stirred in their seats – the most animated they had been all day except for when they brought their glasses of iced coffee or tea to their lips. Victoria just laughed and left her crushed ice alone.

“I'll take care of it, Mrs Jenkins,” she said, finding a bucket under the sink. Victoria turned the tap and let the water create bubbles from the window cleaner she had squeezed into the bottom of it. “I love working outside – especially when the sun is shining. Why waste a day like today inside?”

She hauled the window cleaning tools and bucket to the street, setting the bucket down with a splash. The overspill dried quickly in the early summer heat. The group of boys had stretched and stuck their chewing gum to the window, trying to cover as much surface area as possible. It was still wet and warm as Victoria picked off each piece of gum, though some stretched even further and left streaky trails on the glass. Once she had picked off the gum and thrown it away in the nearest bin, Victoria set to work on washing the windows.

“Working nine to five, what a way to make a living,” she sang cheerily, scrubbing the gum streaks in circular motions. “Barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving!”

Victoria jumped and stretched to reach the highest part of the window, thinking she might as well wash all the windows now. As she jumped she knocked the bucket with her foot; it toppled over and poured its contents out on to the street and into the road. She let her feet touch the floor with a heavy sigh, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand as she leant forward to pick the bucket up again.

Another hand touched the handle before hers did.

“Need some help?” a familiar voice asked.

His head was blocking the sun but Victoria could see his features through the glow behind him. The kind eyes were a giveaway and the dark hair that was greying at the roots was a welcome sight. He was smiling which made the shallow wrinkles that were appearing at the corners of his mouth bunch together. His suitcase was beside him on the pavement and he had one hand on it to keep it close.

“M!” Victoria immediately threw her arms around him, squeezing him as tight as she dared. He laughed beneath her grasp and let go of the bucket and suitcase to hug her back, holding her as close to him as he possibly could. “I've missed you,” she mumbled against his chest, feeling Melbourne's heart beat in her ear.

“I missed you too.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

A lady in high heels tutted at them as she had to take one step out of her way to avoid them in the street. Victoria reluctantly let Melbourne go.

“How are your sister and nephews?” Victoria asked him, wheeling his suitcase into the shop.

Melbourne followed with the empty bucket. “They're great. She's great. She can't wait to meet you either...I should tell you now that plans have changed and she decided to follow-”

He was cut off by a loud shrieking noise.

Before Victoria could turn and see the source of the noise, she was engulfed into a hug so fierce that she almost overbalanced from the sudden shift. Melbourne steadied her with one hand.

The woman stepped back to look at Victoria properly. “You're so much prettier in person than in the photographs,” she exclaimed. “What a quaint shop! My, William, you've outdone yourself!”

Melbourne raised his eyebrows and placed himself between the two women. Customers were watching but they didn't seem to be enthralled in what was happening.

“As I was saying,” Melbourne said, clearing his throat. “She decided to follow me home for an impromptu visit. Victoria, I'd like you to meet my sister Emily. Emily, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend and business partner, Victoria.”

“I've heard so much about you!” Emily said excitedly, hugging Victoria once again. “William could barely stop talking about you.”

Victoria noticed Melbourne nudge his sister gently with his elbow as she looked over Emily's shoulder. Emily had the same dark hair and eyes as her brother but her chin and forehead were much softer in profile. Her nose was more rounded where her brother's was pointed, she was graceful where Melbourne was stiff. Emily was younger and livelier with features that bore the ghosts of Melbourne's own; they were similar in appearance but their personalities betrayed them as two sides of the same coin.

“I do hope I'm not stepping on any toes by coming to stay so suddenly,” Emily told Victoria with great sincerity. “I've wanted to meet you for so long and I'm grateful to be getting away from Peter,” she saw the confusion on Victoria's face. “My husband,” she clarified, “for a while.”

“Not at all,” Victoria insisted in return. “I'm honoured that you were so eager to see me.”

Melbourne gave Victoria an apologetic grin and kissed her cheek before turning back to his sister. “Come on, Em, you can stay in my old flat. You'll have to excuse the mess,” he said as he began to lead her through the shop and up the wooden stairs.

There was a whispering behind Victoria from Mrs Jenkins. When she turned, Mrs Jenkins fell silent and took a step away from Skerret. She stood up straight with her head bowed as Skerret gave Victoria a comforting smile.

“Skerret, could you make Emily and M some iced coffee?” Victoria asked. “Mrs Jenkins, could you finish the windows, please? I need to make our guest feel at home.” Victoria handed Mrs Jenkins the window cloth as she walked past and fled to M’s old flat, leaving Mrs Jenkins with a scowl plastered across her thin mouth and a yellow bucket at her feet.

Victoria could hear Emily's voice from the stairs, travelling clearly through the room with a lyrical lightness and joy. She was talking about the flat, telling her brother that he ought to clean up more often, teasing him about how messy his was Victoria's flat might be; a kind meanness that could only come from a sibling. Victoria couldn't help but quietly laugh to herself as she listened from the other side of the door, her hand hovering over the handle.

An image materialised in Victoria's head. Friedrich was pulling on Feodora's pigtails – not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to be a nuisance at least. Feodora had beautiful hair, Victoria remembered, long and dark, much like her own, that was thick and needed careful attention during brushing. Feodora tried hitting Friedrich back as he kept pulling, calling him names: smelly, big meanie, snot bubble. Eventually the nanny, Lehzen, had to pull them away from one another and make them apologise to each other before they sheepishly slinked away, trying not to turn around and fall about laughing together.

“You'd never behave like your siblings, would you, 'Drina?” Lehzen had asked Victoria in German, picking her up from her nap. She had chewed on Lehzen's dress collar in reply.

The image made Victoria's body shiver with nostalgia, but surely, she had been too young to remember such a small incident from her young life? She thought she must have made it up, a false memory created from dreams and misheard conversations. Yet Victoria could see her brother's chubby, apple cheeks and the gap in his teeth as he laughed. She could hear her sister's childish insults being thrown around the room with a squeaky laugh. She even remembered the powdery floral scent of Lehzen's perfume and the soapy lavender taste of her collar.

Victoria jumped back as the door swung open. “I came to help you settle in,” she explained to Emily. “There's a drink ready for you downstairs...I can bring it up for you, if you like?”

The younger Lamb-Melbourne laughed. “How kind of you! I'd much prefer to drink downstairs with everyone else though...it truly is such a beautiful shop.”

“Thank you...William and I are quite proud of it,” Victoria told her as she led her back down the stairs again. She could hear Melbourne's footsteps following behind. “It's been a labour of love.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Emily exclaimed, smiling as though she knew something Victoria did not.

“It's nice to meet you, Miss Emily,” Skerret said as they entered back on to the shop floor. She thrust the iced mocha into Emily's hands and handed Melbourne's to him far gentler.

Melbourne introduced Skerret and Mrs Jenkins properly in return. Skerret was naturally eager to be friends with Emily where Mrs Jenkins was not, though Emily didn't notice that, of if she did, she ignored it. She linked her arm with Skerret to sit at a table near the door and talk, trying to include Mrs Jenkins as much as possible as she continued to clean the windows with a frown.

Emily’s distraction finally allowed Victoria to discuss business with Melbourne. His ears pricked up at the idea of a private function for Mr Connor's mother – a new idea. A new prospect, a new challenge.

“If it goes well then this could be a great profit source for us,” Victoria told him, standing up on her tip-toes and putting her arms around his shoulders. “Not to mention it could be really fun too...Should I go and give Mr Connor a good news phone call?”

“Yeah, go on then.” He laughed and kissed Victoria quickly before she could wriggle away from him to get to the phone.

“Oh, Albert and Flora are stopping by to say hello later. Could you make sure Emily isn't so enthusiastic around Flora?” Victoria asked as she punched the telephone number from her pocket into her phone. As the line rang, she crumpled up the paper and threw it towards the waste-paper bin. It bounced on the edge and hit the floor.

They arrived at closing. Skerret and Mrs Jenkins were on their way out as Albert and Flora greeted them on their way in. Albert saw Emily first, his shoulders tensing, then he saw the familial resemblance between her and Melbourne and let them drop again. He took a deep breath and straightened his posture.

For as long as Victoria had known Albert he had not been one for meeting strangers. She could not deny, however, how much he had grown into himself. How much his confidence and social skills had flourished in the years that had passed them by in different countries and she had missed it all, then judged him for his past as he re-entered her life. It had always been easy for Albert to hide behind his brother and let Ernst take the lead in social situations whilst he went away to get some air and control his breathing. Albert's almost instant relaxation on meeting Emily felt like a victory.

The skin under his eyes was dark but his eyes themselves were bright. He held the door open for Flora who was a few steps behind him. Her too-large dress did little to hide the growing bump of her stomach as the natural glow of her skin illuminated her tired face. She cooled her sunburnt cheeks and nose with a cream coloured hand-fan, printed with landmarks. One of the keepsakes from their late Italian honeymoon. The one problem with getting married in the winter is the poor weather for honeymoon destinations in Europe.

“Dear Cousin,” Albert said with a smile. His moustache had been recently trimmed – Victoria watched him wriggle his nose to try and get an itchy whisker away. “I trust you've been well?” He embraced Victoria and then greeted Melbourne with the same joy and a pat on the back.

“Quite well,” Victoria assured him. She made an iced coffee for Albert and a decaf tea for Flora. “How was Venice? I hear it's lovely this time of year.”

Flora drank from her glass deeply when Victoria handed it to her and gave a satisfied smile. “It's beautiful,” she agreed. “Hot but not uncomfortably so. I'm glad to see we brought the good weather back with us.”

“We can't wait to see the photographs,” Melbourne told them. “I'd like you both to meet my sister, Emily. She's going to be staying with Victoria and I for a little while.”

Albert took Emily's hand, kissed the back of it and announced his name. “How wonderful to meet you,” he said honestly. He took a step back to gesture to Flora. “This is my wife, Flora.”

There was an excitement in Emily's eyes as she gave Flora a gentle hug. When she pulled back, she already had her eyes locked on to Flora's bump, poised to speak, but Flora got in faster.

“Before you ask, thank you, we're very happy. I'm five months gone, this is our first, we're having a boy and we haven't got a name yet,” she told Emily, closing her eyes for a moment so as not to see the reaction from her. “I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I've been asked a lot lately.”

Emily nodded with a light laugh. “I understand, believe me. My first was a boy too...George is growing up way too fast for my liking if you ask me, but then again I think children always do.”

After more pleasantries were exchanged, the five moved to Victoria and Melbourne's flat. It had elements of both Victoria and Melbourne peppered throughout, no one person dominating the space more than the other. Victoria's paintings hung with pride on the walls, the cushions on the sofa were perfectly plumped, and the rug on the wooden floor was free from all dust. In the bookshelf, Melbourne's books and newspapers were stacked untidily, his aftershave and razor were perched on the bathroom sink, and his wooden globe ornament sat straight on the coffee table in the centre of the living room.

Flora's eyes crinkled at the breeze that was coming in through the wide-open windows and sat in the seat closest to it, letting it wash over her gladly. She placed a hand inside of her black handbag to retrieve the little envelope of photographs, handing them to Albert to share with the rest of the group. She quietly listened to the stories of their honeymoon: their dinners out by the water, the dancing under fairy lights, the gondola ride along the canal, the visit to Basilica di San Marco and St Mark's Square.

The sharing of photographs soon turned into stories about holidays and Melbourne's own honeymoon in Cairo with Caroline. It had long been a joke with them – Cairo with Caro. The joke had begun when Caroline tried to say it one evening, drunk on their duty-free supply, lying on the hotel bed and laughing so hard that her face had turned red. Melbourne copied her with varying degrees of success, often saying slips of the tongue just to make her laugh more. He remembered fondly how Caroline would pretend to fall asleep whenever Melbourne got too deep into telling the history of the city too.

Even Victoria was smiling at the memories, her body leaning against Melbourne's and held there by his arm around her waist. She happily kissed his shoulder, though she could see Emily biting her lip from the corner of her eye.

“Don't look at me like that, Emily, I know you didn't like Caroline but Cairo was such a lovely experience,” Melbourne told her firmly. “I think I'd like to go again someday.”

“I think I'd like to go too,” Victoria told him. She kissed his cheek this time when he gave her toothy grin. “What about your honeymoon, Emily? Where did you and Peter go?”

“St. Moritz in Switzerland,” Emily sighed. “It was different than usual honeymoon locations and that was part of the appeal. Though I fear I may have spent more time in the hotel spa than I did with Peter,” she laughed. “Don't get me wrong, of course, I love Peter very dearly but we have different ideas of a good time. It was wonderful time for the both of us and our George came along very quickly afterwards,” she added.

“I feel left out being the only one of us not to have been married,” Victoria said in jest.

Emily became incredibly animated once more and leaned over to nudge her brother by the arm. “William! When will you finally make an honest woman of Victoria?”

Albert and Flora chuckled as Melbourne nudged her back, a shy smile appearing on his mouth. “That's enough of that.”

Emily nodded, suddenly serious. “Of course, I'm sorry, Will,” she paused. “Victoria, when will you make an honest man of my brother instead?” she teased.

“Oh, I think it's a little too early to be talking about that kind of thing,” Victoria insisted, waving a hand nonchalantly when Flora tried to point out that she and Albert married quickly. “I think for us we know it's too soon. It's all very well when you're both on the same page with that kind of thing, but M and I are quite happy as we are.” Victoria smiled up at him and let him drop a kiss to her forehead in agreement.

The group disbanded after an hour or so more. Albert and Flora were understandably exhausted and Emily thought it was best she let her brother enjoy some time alone with Victoria. She kissed Victoria's cheek on her way out and flicked Melbourne's ear, ducking away and running down the stairs before he had a chance to retaliate.

The sudden absence of noise rang in Victoria's ears and the bliss on her face could not be ignored. Melbourne shut the front door with a twinkle in his eyes as he turned to Victoria, his skin dimpling at the silence.

“Emily is lovely,” Victoria told him softly. “It's going to be so nice to have her around for a little while.”

Melbourne nodded quickly and made eye-contact with her, staring with deep and wanting eyes. He licked at his bottom lip. “We can talk about her later, I'm sure. I've missed you and I want to put all of my attention on you.”

A blush spread over Victoria's cheeks and she stepped closer, feeling the magnetic waves between them draw them ever nearer, as though they were looking at one another for the first time. “Oh, really? And how do you plan on doing that?”

She had barely finished speaking when Melbourne pulled her to him by the waist and kissed her firmly, running the fingers of his left hand through Victoria's hair. His fingers soon became tangled and he tugged gently until she let out a quiet moan against his lips and thrust her hips forward.

His heart beat loud against his chest as he felt Victoria's fingers slip between them and the pressure on his trousers as she tried to unbuckle his belt. She struggled with the clasp and swore under her breath, unwilling to put even an inch more space between them just to get the pesky thing off quicker.

Melbourne instead hoisted her up to waist height, keeping their lips together as she wrapped her legs around him. He walked her the few steps to the sofa and knocked the cushions from their perfect places as he threw Victoria down, her hair falling about her face and shoulders.

They grinned at one another as he unbuckled his own belt.


	2. An Ever-fixed Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria and Melbourne have a cosy morning together and Emily has an epiphany.

Yes, it was definitely the smell of bacon wafting through the door.

Sniffing, Victoria opened her eyes and blinked rapidly, her vision slowly coming into focus. The inky outlines of furniture became harsh on her weary morning mind until her eyes had adjusted to the brightness. June’s sunlight had already weaved its sticky fingers into the bedroom and warmed everything it touched. The heat even made the nape of her neck damp. When she went to move, Victoria found that the crisp white bed-sheet was wrapped tightly around her bare legs, tethering her to the mattress, insistent on keeping her there. But without M beside her, she didn’t feel like staying.

She raised her arms above her head and stretched with a yawn until her bones pleasantly cracked together. Victoria untangled herself from the bed-sheet and picked up Melbourne’s shirt from the floor to slip over her naked shoulders. She had to fold the sleeves to rest at her elbows. The earthy and smoky aftershave that still lingered on the collar made her heart flutter as though the muscle had been replaced by a thousand tiny butterflies. The smell would always remind her of love and home.

Another smell.

This time, the bacon slowly disappeared into the air and faded into something sweet. Victoria inhaled but the source of the scent evaded her. All she knew was that her stomach was rumbling and her mouth was watering.

When she creaked open the door it led to a wall of delicious breakfast aromas. The bacon was back and was intertwined with the sweet smell, there was something citrusy in the air and the unmistakable essence of bitter coffee. She took a deep breath through her nose which made her stomach growl back angrily.

Victoria had barely taken a step out of the bedroom when her William had called out to her.

“Go back to bed,” he instructed. “It can’t be a surprise if you see it!”

“A surprise? What’s the surprise for?” Victoria asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“Does a man need a reason to surprise his girlfriend other than for the fact he loves her?” Melbourne challenged. “Now get back to bed, I won’t be long.”

Victoria laughed and bit her bottom lip. “I hope it involves food,” she called out as she slid back into bed. “I worked up quite the appetite last night.” She smirked and ran her fingers through her hair.

“Yes, I know,” he smirked too.

Their clothes were still scattered in a trail from the living room to the bedroom; a physical footprint of last night’s ecstasy that made Victoria’s skin tingle. A mere two weeks of absence had culminated in an explosion of hearts and skin that took away the very breath of them both. Neither had felt closer to the other as they clung to each other and moved slowly and deliberately together, whispering sweet sounds. After, Victoria had laid on her stomach with a blissful grin as Melbourne traced patterns on her bare back with his fingers. Flowers, like the ones they grew and sold; stars, like the ones they had stared at from Uncle Leopold’s balcony; and hearts, like the ones they had given each other. Melbourne occasionally leant over to kiss the dimples on Victoria’s back.

He came into the bedroom now with a broad grin. A breakfast tray held firm in his hands with a plate of pancakes topped with bacon and maple syrup, a bowl of fruit: apple slices, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and a dollop of Greek yoghurt and honey, a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, and a small vase with fresh roses. However, the over-the-top breakfast was the last thing that Victoria saw.

Melbourne was wearing Victoria’s baking apron. It stopped at the middle of his thighs and fit tautly around his bare torso.

“What?” he asked as he saw the twinkle in Victoria’s eye and watched her purse her lips together. “You don’t like my new look?” he gently turned on the spot with the tray, revealing his bare bum beneath the apron.

“On the contrary,” Victoria laughed, “it’s the sexiest you’ve ever looked, M.”

“I thought so too,” he grinned and passed her the tray, kissing her through their smiles. “Good morning, beautiful.”

“And good morning, handsome,” Victoria retorted, looking down at her breakfast. “This looks amazing, thank you.”

Melbourne perched on the edge of the bed and pinched an apple piece from the bowl of fruit, poking Victoria’s foot when she nudged him with it.

“I thought we could show Emily around London today,” he told her. “Perhaps have lunch with Emma too? They haven’t seen each other for years.”

Victoria nodded, her mouth too full of pancakes to answer verbally.

She made satisfied sounds as she ate, barely looking up from her tray except to stop and sniff the roses. Each rose was a different colour; red, white, and pink. The three had been freshly cut from Melbourne’s allotment early that morning whilst Victoria still slept soundly.

The orange dawn had disturbed him – the zest of the sky putting zest into his spirit. Getting out of bed without waking Victoria had not been an easy feat but the sight of her now, eating with a smile, with tousled bed hair and her face illuminated red and pink from the petals in front of her, seemed worth it.

He laughed when Victoria finally lifted her head and saw that she had syrup on the corner of her mouth that she couldn’t quite reach with her tongue. With a gentle motion of his thumb, Melbourne wiped it away. She kissed the palm of his hand in thanks.

Unfortunately, the dirty dishes in the kitchen pulled Melbourne away from the domestic bliss in the bedroom. Fortunately, this meant that Victoria got another look at Melbourne’s bum in the apron as he walked away.

It always took Melbourne a few minutes to warm up his mouth to whistle. For some reason, he found he mostly blew air through his mouth and accidentally let spittle go flying a few feet in front of him. Usually it would make Victoria laugh so he didn’t mind, mostly is was just frustrating. Caroline and Emily always said that practice made perfect so he lived by that statement. He tried to whistle on his way back to the kitchen, the corners of his mouth and ears raising when he heard Victoria’s quiet laughter from the bedroom.  
  
The washing up water was far too hot but M’s mind was focused upon the whistling and the scrubbing of burnt bacon grease from the bottom of the frying pan to notice. When he took his hands from the water to dry them, they stung.

His fingers felt tight as he flexed them; pink, raw and wrinkled.

“Sweetheart, what have you done to yourself?”

Victoria was coming through to the kitchen with her tray, unable to finish the fruit. The vase of flowers had been left on her dressing table. She put the tray next to the sink and softly took his hands in hers, inspecting them with a thorough eye. They were hot against the delicate skin of her own hands so she raised them to her lips and deftly kissed his fingers, so light that her lips barely touched him.

Melbourne’s smile grew twice as large as he watched her try to heal his fingers. “They feel better already.”

“Good.” Victoria looked up at M from under her dark lashes, keeping his fingers brushed against her lips. “Hey…do you think we have some time before we have to say good morning to Emily?” She kissed his hands a final time and guided them down to her thighs, letting the warmth of them seep into her skin.

He nodded and pretended to check the time, gripping her thighs a little tighter. “Oh, I think we could probably spare a few minutes…”

Victoria grinned and raised herself to balance on her toes. She kissed M deeply and then laughed from her throat. “Keep the apron on.”

* * *

 

Honeybees were hovering around the flower boxes and minding their own business. They enjoyed the lavender the most, going back to it again and again before deciding they had had enough and buzzed away. Dash tried to chase them for at least half an hour, but he over-exhausted himself in the heat and went to find a shady spot with his ears drooped and his tail between his legs.

The step outside by the back door was warm with tiny stones that stuck into Melbourne’s legs. He rarely wore shorts but he didn’t quite enjoy the idea of letting his legs cook inside his usual long, smart trousers.

With its torn cover and bent pages, Melbourne was reading from a book of Shakespeare sonnets, Victoria sitting gladly in his lap, looking to the sky with her sunglasses covering half of her face.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,” Melbourne tucked Victoria’s hair behind her ear to kiss her shoulder. “Or bends with the remover to remove.”

Victoria smiled, twirling a daisy between her thumb and forefinger. “I thought you didn’t like poetry?” She tucked the daisy behind M’s ear.

“No,” he agreed. “But for the first time in a long time, I think I could learn to love it again.”

They smiled in the silence that followed M’s words until Victoria took the book from his hands. She cleared her throat and recited with a laugh, “O no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

Melbourne plucked the flower from his ear and weaved it into Victoria’s hair. “It is the star to every wandering bark whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken,” he continued softly.

He didn’t need to read from the book.

“Love’s not Time’s fool,” Victoria said firmly. She touched the side of Melbourne’s face with one hand and gently brushed her thumb over his cheek, then lightly traced the crow’s feet at the corner of his eye.

“Though rosy lips,” he interrupted and kissed Victoria’s mouth, lingering there for a few moments. Her strawberry flavour lip balm was sweet and sticky. “And cheeks,” he kissed her cheek too, feeling the blush under her skin on his lips. “Within his bending sickle’s compass come.”

Emily’s distinctive laughter came from over the wall like some great, undeniable force come to disturb their late morning intimacy. Victoria and Melbourne lifted their gazes from one another to watch her push open the back gate, her arm linked with that of a man they recognised.

He was smiling slyly at the shop owners and subtly pulled Emily closer to him. The small, beady eyes and long nose made him look like an anteater, Victoria had once said, causing Melbourne to laugh and choke on his coffee. It had gone up his nose and made him cough until he had spilled more than he had drunk.  
There was something about his face that made Victoria distrust him. It made her feel uneasy where for Melbourne he only found his presence, and behaviour, annoying – M was sure he was doing it on purpose too.

“Poetry! I heard poetry!” Emily exclaimed gleefully. “I do hope we’re not interrupting something,” she didn’t pause to hear a response. “I decided to go for a walk this morning and bumped into this fine gentleman outside,” she gestured to the man whose arm she was still linked to. “I’d like you both to meet Henry P- “

“Palmerston,” Victoria and Melbourne said with a sigh.

Emily raised her eyebrows, refusing to let her surprise make her smile disappear. “Oh, are you all acquainted already?”

“Indeed, we are Mrs Cowper,” Palmerston told her apologetically. “I should have said something when I realised you were Mr Melbourne’s sister. I will leave the three of you to enjoy your day. It was an absolute pleasure getting to know you, Mrs Cowper. we must get together again sometime soon.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it.

“We must! Only, I have one condition I’d like you to adhere to if we are to see each other again,” Emily warned, pulling her hand away from him.

Palmerston nodded. “Anything at all for you.”

“You must start calling me Emily! Mrs Cowper makes me sound old.” she laughed and let him take her hand again.

He squeezed it and smiled. “You? Old? Never! But as you wish, Emily. I shall look forward to seeing you again,” he turned to face Victoria and Melbourne. “Miss Hanover, Mr Melbourne…I shall look forward to seeing more of the both of you also.”

Emily waved as he left through the back gate and sighed happily, not noticing her brother and Victoria frowning. “Isn’t Henry just the most divine man you’ve ever met? He has so many interesting stories to tell and he’s quite the gentleman.”

“If you can call an anteater a gentleman then sure,” Victoria said, removing her sunglasses and squinting in the sun to get a better look at Emily. Her summer dress was covered in tiny lighthouses.

“An anteater?” Emily asked.

Victoria huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, still holding the book of sonnets and her sunglasses. “He’s always sniffing around and putting his big nose in our business.”  
  
Melbourne gave her a reassuring squeeze around the waist. “What my charming girlfriend means is that he’s been trying to buy the shop off me for years…he went quiet when Victoria arrived and we had the shop refurbished,” he let out a breath and balanced his chin on Victoria’s shoulder. “But for the last few weeks he’s been trying to buy my share of the business off me again. He keeps saying I’m too old to be running such a successful shop with someone so young, that I won’t be able to keep up for long, that I should be enjoying some time off. He’s persistent if nothing else.”

“Perhaps he has a point,” Emily said, standing stiff. “You aren’t getting any younger, William. If you get to know him then perhaps the three of you could work out an arrangement that appeals to all of you?”

“No,” Melbourne and Victoria said together.

“And that’s that,” M added. “Come on, let’s get going,” he nudged Victoria off him so they could stand. Dash followed their lead. “If we don’t go soon then we’ll be late meeting Emma and she’s got to pick the kids up from school later.”

Emily linked her arm with her brother’s as they left through the back gate. They waited for Victoria to leave Shakespeare’s sonnets behind and replace them with Dash on his lead.  
  
“You know,” Emily began, grinning at Melbourne. “In another life, I think you and Emma could have been very happy together.”

M raised his eyebrows and resisted laughing. “That’s strange. In another life, my little sister minds her own business.”  
  


* * *

  
Emma Portman had known M for most her life. They had been childhood friends who could barely have been more different from each other. Melbourne was quite the outcast to begin with – spending much of his time reading in corners or studying in his own time. Other children would pick on him and call him names but he’d ignore them and pretend he couldn’t hear them when they talked about him behind his back.

_Let them be mean_ , he thought, _they won’t be saying these things when I’m a grown up and I’m Prime Minister and I’m telling them what to do because they all work for me._

“Leave him alone, he’s not doing anything wrong!” Emma had cried, her pigtails swinging beside her head like pendulums before shoving one boy into some mud on the playground.

Melbourne stood with his mouth open, clutching his book to his chest. Not even Peniston had done such a thing for him – Peniston would only tell him to keep ignoring the bullies when Little William told him about them when they got home from school.

Those that had picked on Melbourne had slowly begun to stop with Emma watching. No one wanted to get on the bad side of her or her friends for fear of suddenly becoming uncool overnight.

“I’m Emma,” she had said proudly, putting out her hand and standing up tall. “And I want to be your friend.”

“My name is William,” he’d answered, loosening his grip on his book and cautiously taking her hand to shake. “I would like you to be my friend too.”

They had remained close for a number years and then lost contact through a sequence of events that had kept them apart and busy. It had been autumn when they reunited on the steps of their university and the world had been clad in gold and copper. Melbourne was a fresh-faced politics student and Emma was the jovial modern language student. They laughed and joked together as though the relationship had not fizzled away into fond memories that had been just out of reach.

Emily, by this point, was convinced the two old friends were destined to be together – “you found each other again after so long! It’s fate, Will!” – forgetting that Melbourne was already in love with Caroline and Emma was seeing Edward.

Melbourne and Emma promised never to tell Emily about their single drunken kiss that came as a result from letting loose after too many hours studying in the library. They had linked pinkie fingers and swore on it. So far, the twenty-year-old promise had been kept.

The house Emma shared with her husband Edward and their six children was understandably large. Though it was nowhere near as terrifyingly grand as the houses that Victoria’s Uncle Leopold owned – this house seemed to be the perfect combination of homey and stately with a large garden for the children. Dash made a run for it as soon as they arrived and rolled happily in the grass.

“Lovely to see you all,” Emma said, holding the front door open until they had piled into the hallway. “Don’t mind the mess in the kitchen, I’m trying to prepare dinner for me and the kids. Go through to the garden, I’ve got some fresh homemade lemonade out there.”

Beyond the disorder of the kitchen and out the sliding glass doors, the grass of the garden was tidy and short. Dash was running about in circles with his tongue out, yapping happily. He would occasionally run back to Victoria to get her to play too, but she stroked his head and sent him on his way again instead.

The glass patio table had a parasol sticking through the middle of it. It was wide open and reaching its spindles across the entire width and breadth of the table – the only shade in the whole garden.

“I do hope you haven’t been running your poor brother around the bend,” Emma told Emily, coming out of the kitchen to help Melbourne pour the lemonade from the green plastic jug.

“You know me,” Emily grinned and took her phone from her dress pocket to reply to a text. “I’m a saint of a little sister.”

Emma smiled and Melbourne snorted.

“Victoria, you look well,” Emma remarked, handing her a glass of lemonade. “You too, William. Both of you are practically glowing. Love fits you like a glove.”

“I think William especially has caught the love bug,” Emily teased. “You know, I caught them both reading love poetry this morning!”

Emma gasped in mock horror. “Poetry? Really? It can’t be true!” She laughed and took her seat between Emily and Melbourne. “Is it true, William? Have you let poetry back into your life?”

“Indeed, he has,” Emily chuckled. “Perhaps that’s why they are both glowing? Alternatively, though, that could be down to all the sex they’re having.”

A choke came from Melbourne and Emma whilst Victoria snickered into her lemonade, doing her utmost not to smile.

“Inappropriate, Emily,” Melbourne told her sternly. He relaxed a little when he felt Victoria’s comforting hand on his back. “That’s quite enough of that kind of talk.”

“You two were very late this morning,” Emily protested. “I went to your apartment to find you and when I got to the door,” she paused to wrack her brain for the right words. “Let’s just say you’re very vocal! I left you both alone and went for my walk instead. You’re lucky the walls aren’t much thinner in those apartments or that would be really inappropriate,” she pointed out. “And anyway, you can’t be upset that I’m friendly with Henry now because if you two hadn’t been upstairs enjoying yourselves then I would never have met him!”

Victoria gently placed her glass on the table and rubbed Melbourne’s back. His shoulders became less tense again. She looked to Emma with wide eyes, asking her silently to deflect the conversation.

“So…” Emma said, clearing her throat. “How is Peter, Emily? I haven’t seen him in what seems like an age!”

Emily was back looking at her phone, a smile forming on her mouth again. “Hm?”

“Peter, darling. How is he?”

“Oh,” she slumped in her chair a little, her smile limp. “He’s fine…He’s so busy these days that I bet he’ll barely notice that I’ve gone. He’ll have a crease in his shirt he wants ironed out in a few days so he’ll come to find me, only I won’t be there, of course. That’s when he’ll finally notice that I’ve gone away for a while.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Victoria interjected. “I thought I wouldn’t miss M whilst he was away because it was just for two weeks, only, it turned out that I missed him more than words could describe. I’m sure Peter will realise just how much he missed you when you get home too.”

Home; where someone lives permanently as a member of a household or family. The idea of going back home to her husband made Emily’s heart sink and her stomach queasy. She wanted to see her children, she wanted to be at home for them, but not for Peter, not any more. The simple and most painful truth was that he bored her. She didn’t feel loved, challenged, excited or supported…he had a flimsy existence in her life and that was that. Peter was a form of security for her and not a lot else.

Suddenly, Emily found she had a name for the hollow feeling in her chest whenever he was around: unfulfillment. Her eyes flickered up like a flame to see her brother and Victoria, casually intimate with their hands on each other and sitting close. Even their outfits were similar: blue shorts, white shirts, sunglasses, and their varying degrees of accessories. Emily teased her brother, she realised, because she was jealous. It had been a long time since she had felt that longingness to see Peter the way that Victoria longed to see Melbourne.

If Emily had dressed up in something sexy or made a move on Peter for sex then he would hardly notice, let alone have morning sex on a Monday like Victoria and Melbourne. When she looked at her brother and Victoria and saw their passion, love, and adoration for each other, she saw everything that she lacked in her own marriage and she couldn’t stop the pangs of jealousy from coming to her. All she could do was gently tease her brother to make her feel better about the unfulfillment in her heart instead.

The ping of her phone brought her out of herself and her epiphany. The notification flashed green.

_Would you like to go for dinner tomorrow? My treat for the loveliest lady in London. -Henry_

Victoria’s head was tilted a little to the left. “Emily?”

There was a delay from Victoria’s voice to her words registering in Emily’s brain – she hadn’t answered her yet. She sat up straight and gave Victoria a shaky smile. “Oh…yes, I’m sure you’re right.”

But Emily’s fingers were typing quicker than her brain was thinking.

_I’d love to! Tell me where and I’ll be there at eight. -Emily_


	3. The Letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melbourne receives a letter from someone from his past and Victoria starts to struggle, meanwhile, Palmerston is being Palmerston.

As he flicked through the letters, a small, handwritten envelope caught his attention and his heart began to thump. It had been a long time since Melbourne had seen that handwriting but suddenly, here it was without warning, still with the ability to make him feel sick to his stomach. He dropped the rest of the post by his cash register without looking at it.

How could he sort his bills from his junk mail now?

The last time he had seen this handwriting had been in a different letter, one he would rather forget. Even so, he had kept it tucked safely away in a box under the bed of his original apartment. He was sure Emily wasn’t nosy enough to go looking for it there, even if she was, he knew that she wouldn’t mention it. She knew better than to do that.  
  
Melbourne dragged his feet to the nearest chair and slumped heavily into it, still staring down at the envelope in his hands. He stared until his eyes shifted out of focus and the envelope was nothing more than a distant image in a hazy fog. If he closed his eyes, he thought it might go away. It might disappear as though it was nothing more than a figment of his imagination or the product of a cruel dream. Yes, that must be all it is – a dream! He squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened his eyes again, it was still there. Still there! Why wouldn’t it go away?

The ink from the aging fountain pen had leaked in midnight droplets on the thick envelope so it looked more like a relic from some Victorian museum than a piece of modern correspondence. It didn’t feel right in his fingers as he turned it over to see the back of it. Plain white. He wasn’t sure what else he was expecting.

He flipped the envelope round in his hands again to look at his name written in slanted, neat cursive. A few faint smears of ink were whispers on the L’s from the writer’s left hand.

Damp patches were forming under Melbourne’s arms and on his back, his face felt warm and his mouth felt dry and unnatural. It was almost as though his mouth belonged to someone else and it had been stuck on to his face during some Frankenstein-esque operation.

Fresh air and a drink, that’s what he needed. Melbourne stood, leaving the letter on the table as he opened some windows. The sun had long since left them and now, in the middle of July, the rain decided to fall. It was a welcome change for the plants that inhabited the flower garden and M’s allotment.

The rain rhythmically spat on the windows, slow and patchy at first, and then heavy and consistent until it sounded like white noise. Melbourne was glad not to be in silence.

8:50am. Too early for whiskey. Espresso would have to do.

He ground the beans to a coarse texture before allowing the grounds to drop into the portafilter. The water was purposefully too hot for the coffee – as it brewed and trickled into his espresso cup, he looked over his shoulder at the letter. A sense of paranoia washed over Melbourne’s body as though the letter was making rude gestures behind his back, or moving whenever he wasn’t looking. He didn’t trust it.

The last of the espresso dripped into the cup and Melbourne drank it without letting it cool. He hoped the heat and the burnt bitterness would make his mouth feel more like his again.

The polished floor squeaked as he turned back on his heel to the table, setting down his coffee cup with a clack. It made the envelope jump. M lowered himself into the chair and stared once again – his fingers twitching to open it, but his heart and mind warned against it.

Victoria’s hurried footsteps echoed on the stairs. She fled onto the shop floor still fixing her hair with dark circles under her eyes.

“Why didn’t you wake me? Are Skerret and Mrs Jenkins here yet?” She smoothed out her lilac blouse and picked some of Dash’s hair off her black skirt. Yawning, she went around the shop, shutting the windows. “You’re letting all the rain in, my love.”

No answer.

“Love?” Victoria repeated. “Is there something the matter?”

Melbourne took a deep breath and slipped the letter in his pocket. “No, nothing is the matter,” he assured her, doing his best to smile. “You looked tired, I thought you could do with a lie-in, especially since we have the party for Mrs Connor this afternoon. You’ve been working too hard.”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Victoria beamed. “I adore this place.”

“Of course you do,” he said fondly.

She stood behind his chair and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, leaning a little to kiss his neck. A pink stain was left on his skin that Victoria wiped away with her thumb. With every slight movement, Melbourne could smell her multi-layered perfume – fresh orange, then a light heart of jasmine and rose that mixed playfully with one another, and finally the strong and earthy scent of patchouli grounding the perfume to her wrists and neck. He recognised it as the pink bottle he had bought for her 25th birthday in May.

“I adore you too, naturally,” she told him with a laugh. “On a serious note though, have you heard from Skerret and Mrs Jenkins? I thought they would be here by now, or at least one of them would be.”

Melbourne nodded. “Unfortunately, they’re carpooling and stuck in traffic. I’m sure we can manage, however. We’ve done so before.”

“You’re right,” Victoria agreed, pacing up and down the shop floor. “You’re always right.” Her sensible but fashionable heels made the floorboards rasp.

The clock on the wall struck nine and Victoria let out a breath, still trying to gather her tired mind from sleeping in late, but her thoughts drifted away as easily as helium balloons. She glanced at the shop doors – nobody was waiting today. Most people had gone straight to work to avoid the rain.

Melbourne rose to his feet to unlock the doors but the letter weighed him down like an anchor and he could feel his blood rushing in his ears. He kept his eyes fixed on the doors and ignored the bulk in his pocket. The sound of the key in the lock was somewhat a relief; he could put his focus on work for the next ten hours.

There were only a few steps to his till and counter, but the walk felt like an eternity.

Mechanical whirring. The ear-piercing screech of the blender. Strawberries, raspberries, bananas, almond milk, and cashews whirled around in a hurricane of pink juice. Victoria was tapping her foot as she made her smoothie.

“Can you manage on your own on the shop floor until Skerret and Mrs Jenkins arrive? I want to get the party details finalised for later,” she asked. Victoria yawned and grabbed a glass to pour her smoothie into. When she turned to face him, she saw a shadowy figure across the street, gently obscured by the blue umbrella he had in his tight hand. “Oh, watch out. The anteater is about.”

Melbourne raised his heavy head and rubbed his eyes. Great. Just what he needed.

Palmerston was smiling when he entered the shop, shaking his umbrella of excess water. “A cup of your finest Americano, please, Miss Hanover.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him her best smile regardless, setting down her smoothie. “What size?”

“Oh, medium.” Palmerston leant on the counter of the coffee station and smiled over at Melbourne. “Good morning, Sir! I hope you’re well.”

Melbourne nodded and gave him a smile too. “Very well, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed. “You look as though your mind is elsewhere,” he sipped at his coffee when Victoria handed it to him. “Actually, Miss Hanover, you look rather under the weather yourself. Are you sure the two of you don’t need an extra helping hand?”

Victoria huffed and took a gulp of her smoothie. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I slept in today, that’s all. Emily has been helping us out for the past few weeks and we employ two members of staff – we don’t need any more helping hands, thank you, Mr Palmerston.”

The anteater made a point of looking around the shop. “I don’t see Emily or your staff here today,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“That’s because Emily has gone home to see her husband and her children,” Melbourne told him, staring intensely. “She’s told you about them, I’m sure.”

“She might have mentioned them,” Palmerston told him with a shrug. “But she also mentioned that she’s worried about you and your insistence on working so hard. You both work so hard.”

Victoria’s clenched jaw was trembling beneath her narrowed eyes. She was taking deep breaths, but they couldn’t seem to quash the irritation that was building up inside her small frame faster than usual.

“Mr Palmerston!” she finally snapped. “We are managing quite well without your help. Should we want extra staff or a buyer for the shop, we shall advertise!”

The blood seemed to drain from Victoria’s head and she had to put her hands out to steady herself against the counter. She let her eyelids flutter closed. Both Melbourne and Palmerston watched her face change from beetroot to chalk – Melbourne shot up like a bullet from a gun to gently guide her into a chair.

Palmerston grabbed a glass of water to hand to her, but Victoria just waved both men away. “Don’t fuss! I’m feeling a little light-headed from skipping breakfast.”

“Come on then,” Melbourne said, helping her back on to her feet. “Let’s get something to eat.”

“Is everything alright?” Skerret asked from the door way, taking down the hood of her coat. Mrs Jenkins was peering at the scene from over Skerret’s shoulder.

Melbourne turned as he slowly led Victoria to the stairs.

“Coats off and aprons on, ladies. We’ll be back in a moment. Look after Mr Palmerston, won’t you?” He ushered Victoria upstairs as quick as she could go. “Eat and if you’re not feeling better later then I can ask Skerret to cover the party,” Melbourne told her. He poured Victoria some cereal.

“No, no,” she sighed. “I’ve been looking forward to it! I can’t rest, I have too much to do. I need to go to the bank, and I can’t cancel dinner with Albert because there’s something he wants to talk to me about, and the delivery company wants to deliver on Tuesdays now instead, we need to go out with those taster pots of the new summer drink to promote, prepare for Skerret and Mrs Jenkins’ quarterly review, Flora has her baby shower coming up, and we haven’t been on a proper date in ages.”

Melbourne placed the cereal in front of her at the kitchen table and kissed her forehead, trying to kiss away the tension building there. “And we’ll get it all sorted,” he promised. “We’ll split the tasks up and schedule them. You don’t have to spread yourself so thin just because you enjoy working.”

He couldn’t deny her passion for the job. In the four weeks he had been home she had been a pocket rocket.

The joy on her face when she brought home the newspaper was like nothing he had seen. He thought her sparkling eyes and wide grin would brighten the darkest of rooms; her excited chattering would capture even the harshest of audiences. Melbourne didn’t want to look upon any joyous face again. Hers was perfect. Immeasurably so. Why all faces couldn’t look like hers, he wasn’t sure.

“Look, M! The new advertising campaign is up – and look! It’s got the URL for the website and everything,” she cried, slapping the newspaper down on the table. “It looks so professional. I can’t believe it’s finally finished.”

“You’ve got a brilliant eye for design,” Melbourne agreed. He put his arm around her and kissed her temple. “Proud of you.”

“I just have to get the advert in other magazines now.” She tucked a stray section of hair behind her ear, biting down on her lip to try and stop the excitement from physically over spilling.

“And I’m sure you will,” Melbourne assured her. “I have so much faith in you.”

Then they had kissed. Though, it was less of a kiss than it was the pressing together of lips. Victoria’s smile puffed up her round cheeks until they were strained scarlet and Melbourne’s heart ached with pride and joy.

He looked down at her tired face as she slowly ate her cereal, the tremor in her hand beginning to steady. Deep down, he knew that she wouldn’t slow down no matter how much he implored her too, how exhausted she became, how light-headed she found herself. There was something recognisable in that kind of unhealthy work behaviour – there had been days when Caro had practically begged him to slow down, to take a day off, but he loved it too much to stop. The arduous work always came from a good place.

“Thank you for this, M,” Victoria said, pushing her empty cereal bowl across the table. “I know you said nothing was wrong, but you looked troubled earlier. You know that I’m here for you, don’t you?”

Melbourne slipped his hands into his pockets with a sigh and a small smile. He squished the corner of the envelope – the point felt like the tip of a knife. The Frankenstein feeling of his mouth was back. He went to speak but caught Victoria’s dark circles and let his shoulders relax.

“I’m fine,” he said again. Easily, he pulled his hands from his pockets and gently kissed her. “Get some rest and come back when you’re ready.”

The rain had finally stopped to make way for the typical mid-July weather. A puddle had formed by the entrance doors – reflecting the sun in a diamond dance and striking the windows in a summer crescendo.

Palmerston was still leaning against the café bar.

“Yeah, I have to go. I’ll see you soon, Emily. I miss you too.” He hung up his mobile and gave Melbourne a large smile. “I do hope Miss Hanover is well. It would be a great shame for her to be ill during the busy summer months.”

A vein in Melbourne’s forehead strained against the thin skin there as he held his hands behind his back. “She’s very well. Thank you for your,” he paused and raised his eyebrows at the man. “Concern.”

“I do like to be of service,” Palmerston assured him. “Emily is on her way back. It looks like she can’t stay away from London for more than a week.”

“She’s a city girl at heart,” Melbourne agreed. “Emily has always thrived here.”

“It’s such a shame that she had to move to the countryside with her husband. Clearly there’s something missing for her there.” Palmerston sighed dramatically and stood up straight. “I think I’d like to buy her some flowers for her return. That’s your area if I’m not mistaken, Mr Melbourne.”

M rang his hands together and gritted his teeth. Still, he smiled and led Palmerston to the bouquet station to peruse what he had to offer.

Mrs Jenkins pretended that she hadn’t been listening in, wiping down an already clean table.

The anteater, being true to his name, stuck his nose into each bouquet and sniffed. He sniffed so deep that his nostrils flapped and Melbourne thought the petals would be sucked straight into his nose. He was lingering around the bouquets on purpose. He was asking Melbourne tedious questions on purpose. He was winding him up on purpose. Melbourne wouldn’t let Palmerston win, but on the other hand, he was still a customer and M could only provide him with the best service possible.

After over an hour of picking and choosing and changing his mind, Palmerston left with a bouquet of apricot carnations, yellow chrysanthemums, and white roses, wrapped in cellophane and tied with a gold ribbon.

Victoria still hadn’t returned to the shop floor. When Skerret went to investigate, she found her on the sofa, making final preparations for the party.

“I don’t mean to disturb, Miss Victoria,” Skerret said from the doorway, knocking on the open door. “But Mr Melbourne asked me to see if you were alright and to tell you that Mr Connor is on his way with the cake.”

“Thank you, Skerret. Please tell him I’m on my way.”

* * *

 They stood with their jaws open at the size of the cake for an eighty-year-old lady. Four wide tiers of vanilla sponge sandwiched together with strawberry jam and whipped cream, topped with icing sugar, buttercream rosettes and fresh strawberries. Melbourne brought it through under the watchful eye of Mr Connor and the guidance of Victoria, carrying it to the fridge in the café kitchen.

The rest of the working day passed without extraordinary incident. Customers came and went, preferring to take their iced coffees and teas to a sunny spot outside. Dash amused the toddlers as they came in with their parents or walked by the shop window – “Mummy, it’s a doggy! Why is there a doggy in that shop?” He wagged his tail at the attention.

Melbourne made sure Victoria ate little and often, drank plenty of water, and wasn’t pushing herself with any work that would be easier done another day or with help from somebody else.

“Careful, darling, don’t slip on the wet floor,” he’d warned her as she mopped the floor.

She rolled her eyes with a laugh. “It’s okay, I can manage. You don’t need to be so protective.” She yawned and felt a dull ache behind her eyes. “Though I think I might take some painkillers and take a nap to get rid of this headache before it comes to fruition.”

* * *

 She was curled up on the sofa with her hands under head as a make-shift pillow. In this position, she looked smaller somehow, like a doll that had been put to bed by an over-zealous child. Dash was asleep on the other end of the sofa, snoring lightly.

Melbourne took a blanket from their bedroom and carefully draped it over her, then leant down to kiss her temple and brush her hair from her face. He must have done this a thousand times with Caroline and their son when they were ill too.

Once, they had been curled up together; Caroline holding their boy close to her, her nose pressed against his apple-scented head. He would only let his hair be washed in the same apple shampoo and conditioner. Anything else would have resulted in a tantrum.

The paramedics had left half an hour earlier. Once they were sure that the five-year-old could breathe again and Caroline was no longer hysterical, they made their quiet retreat. Melbourne was worried about them both, but he couldn’t afford to be anything but calm for them. He draped the blanket over them, kissed their heads, and poured himself a drink.

He slipped his hand into his pocket and heaved the letter back into the open air. It was creased but still just a terrifying as this morning – the dark, strong, cursive hand would haunt him forever, he was sure of it. Melbourne turned the letter in his hand to find the opening. Cautiously, he picked at the edge of the flap, his heart seemingly stopping in his chest and breath catching in his throat. He could feel his face growing purple.

“Mr Melbourne?” Mrs Jenkins called up from the bottom of the stairs. “We’ve counted the takings.”

The letter would have to wait. He glided it back into his pocket and ran his finger absently along its sides until it stung as he quietly came back down the stairs. The last job was to check the finance books and write his signature to confirm the money had been counted. Mrs Jenkins and Skerret were almost out the door when Melbourne called the latter back to him.

“Victoria is indisposed,” he explained. “Would you mind covering her for the party? We’ll pay you for the over-time, of course.”

“I’m only happy to help,” Skerret said with a smile, shrugging off her coat and waving goodbye to Mrs Jenkins. “I hope Miss Victoria isn’t too ill.”

“She’s not,” Melbourne told her. “I’m sure she’ll be alright again by tomorrow – she’s worked herself to exhaustion, that’s all.”

Skerret nodded, tying her apron back around her waist. “She’s a good owner and manager. I greatly admire her work ethic, you know.”

“So do I,” Melbourne said fondly, pushing together a few of the café tables.

“It shouldn’t be to the detriment of her health though,” Skerret sighed, grabbing cutlery from the café kitchen. “Ain’t her uncle that Belgian prince? I heard someone on the news talking about his visit to London last year. She never has to work if she doesn’t want to but she’s one of the hardest working women I know.”

Melbourne couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he moved on to setting up the flowers and cellophane for the mini flower arranging class. “Yes, that uncle is the one that gave us the money so we had a solid foundation to build the business from. She’s determined to pay all of it back, though. She won’t rely on her family’s money for too long.”

“That’s admirable of her,” Skerret said, looking towards the door. “Oh, Mr Connor’s back…” He was across the street, helping his mother out of the car. They were followed by five older ladies. “They look very lively for eighty-year-olds,” Skerret mused.

The group of women were chatting and laughing, waving their walking sticks, two of them were practically dancing down the street and they had even put a party hat on Mrs Connor.

Neither Melbourne or Skerret were quite prepared for the havoc that was about to be unleashed by the ladies with a combined age of four hundred and forty-seven. The jokes that came tumbling from their wrinkled mouths could make anyone blush – Skerret’s jaw hung open as she listened, nudging Mrs Connor gently in disbelief as she told graphic stories from her youth. Poor Mr Connor covered his ears and pretended that his mother wasn’t saying such things.

Mr Melbourne couldn’t escape from the women and their relish for life either.

“Such a handsome and charming man,” Mary said wistfully.

“Oh, if only I were forty years younger,” quipped Iris with a sigh. She squeezed Melbourne’s arm with a cheeky grin.

“And if only I were forty years older,” Melbourne answered, politely moving away from her under the guise of clearing away cake plates. “Though I think my girlfriend might have something to say about that.”

Mrs Connor nodded with a grin. “Miss Victoria is a lucky lady. Beautiful too.”

“I consider myself to be the lucky one,” Melbourne told the group.

He was met with a chorus of grandmotherly cooing.

* * *

 By the morning, Victoria was singing. The clouds over London were grey yet the humidity was thick and claggy. Sweat dripped down her forehead, though it was nothing some open windows and doors could cure. She switched on the radio in the kitchen and tuned it out of BBC Radio 3 and into Radio 1. The speakers crackled and hissed.

“Good morning, everyone! It’s Saturday July 15th and it’s 7:30am,” started the man on the radio before leading into a quick round up of the news.

Two slices of toast with raspberry jam, a banana, and a cup of coffee was enough to give Victoria the physical strength to face the day: she refused to live today like she had done yesterday. No, she would not be overwhelmed and under-energetic again!

Breakfast was done – one thing to tick off the to-do list. Next, shower and dress. She sang in the shower too, not loud enough to wake Melbourne however, since Victoria thought he deserved a lie-in.

It was another dungaree day, she decided, throwing open the doors to her wardrobe. Another thing to check off her to-do list.

She and Melbourne had sat together in bed after the party to divide and schedule all their upcoming tasks. Looking at today’s small slip of paper and the monthly calendar split into two sections made everything feel a whole lot more manageable.

Laundry. She picked up her pyjamas and her clothes from yesterday, then Melbourne’s, then swiped Dash’s blanket from the living room. She shoved the lot into the washing machine, humming along to Ed Sheeran on the radio.

The _sea breeze_ fabric softener made Victoria’s stomach feel queasy so she quickly poured it into the drawer with some washing powder and closed it with a crinkled nose and a curled lip.

Wait, that white shouldn’t be in the drum, it’ll be ruined by the black laundry. The white laundry could wait until tomorrow. She opened the washing machine door and plucked out the white material – not a shirt, she soon realised.

The first thing she noticed was the beautiful handwriting and its many loops. The ink splodges and smudges added to the charm of the handwritten letter. Victoria couldn’t remember the last time she had received one; text messages and phone calls were more her thing, but she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed the novelty of letters.

She always thought that William had a beautiful name, but this letter made it look delicate and bewitching. The curls of the cursive hand made _William Lamb-Melbourne_ sound more like the name of a prince in a mythical story than that of an ordinary man. She turned the letter and ran her thumb over the rip in the envelope before getting to her feet.  
  
“What are you doing with that?” Melbourne asked stiffly. His voice made Victoria jump. “Give that here, you shouldn’t have that!” His voice was harsh in a way that she had never heard before as he snatched the letter from her hands.

Victoria blinked, her hands frozen as though she still had the letter between her fingers. “I…I’m sorry. I almost put it through the wash,” she explained, stuttering. “I wasn’t snooping or anything…I was admiring the handwriting.”

Melbourne relaxed and let out a breath, his tension melting away in a minute and replaced by embarrassment instead. “I should be the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.” He clutched the letter tighter in his hands. “It’s just…something I wasn’t expecting to receive.”

“What is it, if you don’t mind me asking?” Victoria said attentively, hesitantly reaching out to touch Melbourne’s shoulder. When he didn’t flinch away, she stepped closer and kissed his chest. “It’s clearly important to you…I want to help however I can, if I can.”

If he told her then she’d want him to open it, but if he didn’t tell her, she’d feel like he was keeping secrets – he’d reacted far too strongly to her holding that letter to think it was nothing important. Melbourne took and deep breath and scratched at his stubble, looking down at the now crumpled writing from his past. He didn’t say anything for a moment, though it felt like hours had passed before he opened his mouth.

“It’s from Frederick,” he told her, keeping his voice tight. “Caroline’s father.”


	4. Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melbourne prepares for an emotional day and Victoria is growing more unwell, leaving M to cope on what turns out to be one of the busiest days Espressaroma has seen. Emily and Palmerston do their best to help.

The summer breeze brushed past her pink sundress as she walked towards the restaurant. She was thankful for the breeze; why the weather had to be so hot this summer, she didn’t know. Still, once August was over then autumn would finally settle in and she and Melbourne could go back to having warm cosy mornings in bed, baking apple pies together, drinking hot chocolate between trees that were turning shades of saffron, ivory and amber, all bundled up in thick coats and woollen hats. They would get to enjoy the sunset earlier in the day, the autumn flowers would be coming in strong: dahlias, asters, perhaps even the hibiscus flowers would bloom. Melbourne had never tried to grow them before so he was looking forward to seeing how they would turn out, which naturally meant that Victoria was too. But best of all, this infernal heat would go away. The humidity would disperse and she wouldn’t feel so ridiculously drained.

The lampposts and buildings were spinning. Had they always been that out of focus?

She had to stop and sit on the nearby brick wall. Ants were happily crawling along it and scurried around her as Victoria took her perch. A few minutes of deep breathing with closed eyes made the world stand still again. She yawned and rubbed her eyes until she had flakes of mascara on her fingers and lids.

Albert was outside the restaurant just as he promised, smiling broadly and already eager to eat. He kept turning to see the menu on the door as he waited for Victoria to cross the road.

“Victoria!” he cried happily, pulling her into a hug. “How lovely to see you. It’s such a beautiful evening for dinner, no?”

“It certainly is,” she agreed, looking around at the vibrant blue sky. It seemed unnatural for the world to be so bright at 7pm.

“Outside?” Albert gestured to a table next to them.

Victoria nodded and gladly slipped into a metal chair, putting her handbag under the table between her feet. She noticed that Albert had bags under his eyes too, but he was a happy kind of tired with little lines appearing at the corners of his mouth from smiling too much. Fatherhood was going to suit him.

From their cosy table outside, Victoria could hear the busy chatter from the restaurant; it sounded more like a murmur behind the smooth jazz from the speakers hidden in fake plant pots on the floor. Despite the flood of sunlight that streamed in through the windows, the low orange lights in the building were on, glowing onto the mahogany tables and counter-tops. The staff who weren’t serving customers had their arms folded across their chests. Their mouths opened every few seconds in a yawn that was passed on from staff member to staff member. Victoria heard the faint voice of one waitress wishing they would hurry up and fix the bloody air conditioning.

“How is Flora? It’s such a shame that she couldn’t join us this evening.” Victoria said, plucking a menu from the table.

Albert laughed and scratched his chin. “I think she is grateful for the few hours of silence. Apparently, I make too many noises when I work on the nursery.”

Victoria chuckled. “Then I am glad to be aiding her in some peace and quiet. There’s not too long to go now, right? You must be excited.”

“Approximately two months left,” he gently bit his bottom lip, his smile glowing from within him. “I can tell from the scan photos that he is going to be very cute.”

She nodded as she let Albert talk all things baby, most of it going over her head. Honestly, the whole thing bored her. She wouldn’t let Albert know, but she thought all babies were ugly. Creepy, even. Their heads and eyes were too big for their bodies whilst their noses and fingers were too small. Babies were tiny creatures that were out of proportion, who had hands that were too wrinkly for how young they were, that were completely dependent on other people and did nothing but scream.

“Have you decided what you want?” Albert asked. “I will go and order for us both.”

Victoria’s head snapped up at the change of conversation. “Oh…thank you. I’ll have the prawn and avocado salad and a lemonade.”

He wasn’t gone for long but in the meantime Victoria fanned herself with the menu and looked out at the street – some teenagers still roamed with water pistols in hand and a butterfly coasted down the road. The citrus glow in the distance predicted the soon setting of the sun.

“Such beautiful flowers,” Albert said, coming to sit back down with their drinks. “Are they more of Mr Melbourne’s handiwork?”

Her hand flew instinctively to her hair and to the delicate peach flowers with vibrant yellow centres had been skilfully weaved into her thick braids. Just as instinctively, her face bloomed into a beam.

“Thank you. They’re oxalis flowers – aren’t they sweet?” Victoria sighed happily and sipped at her lemonade. “M is wonderful at matching flowers with clothes, don’t you find?”

Albert nodded and clasped his hands together on the table. His wedding ring glinted in the sun. “I am not surprised. You and flowers are his greatest loves, it seems. Dressing you in what he grows must come naturally.”

Victoria hid her face behind her hands, laughing, which made Albert laugh too. “A very romantic notion,” Victoria told him, “but not one that he has expressed to me himself.”

“I think you’ll find he has,” Albert argued. “You only need to look at yourself when he puts those flowers in your hair.”

The waitress arrived with their food quicker than they had anticipated. She smiled but it was fake; Victoria could tell which customer service smiles were fake now that she had spent a year working in the field. Part of her was sympathetic for the waitress, she understood how tiring being courteous and smiley all day could be.

Albert got stuck into his steak sandwich, the crumbs sticking in his moustache. “So,” he said, pausing to lick his thick bottom lip. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Victoria nodded, swallowing a mouthful of lettuce and prawn. “I’m all ears.”

“Flora and I have been talking,” he started, setting down his sandwich. The knife and fork clashed together as he pulled the napkin from under them to wipe his fingers and mouth. “And we decided that, should you want to be, we would love for you to be Baby’s godmother.”

* * *

  _Dear William,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I heard about the growing success of your shop: congratulations. You have worked tirelessly to get where you are now and I hope it continues for you. What a shame it is that George and Caroline are not here to see you finally succeed in the shop they too adored._

_And it is George and Caroline who are the real subjects of this letter._

_Now, I’m sure it won’t have escaped your notice that next month marks the tenth anniversary of George’s passing, the eighth of Caroline’s, and what would have been George’s 20th birthday. An emotional month is ahead of us, you’ll agree._

_I have reached a time in my life where I am without a wife, without my only daughter, without my gorgeous grandson and my sons have moved away. As such, for the aforementioned anniversaries, I am coming to London._

_It’s your prerogative on whether you wish to join me at the graves on George’s birthday on the 11th August. I know you prefer your private, quiet grieving time and I am more than understanding and sympathetic of it. I shan’t be offended if you decline this invitation._

_If at any point, you would like to meet to have a small celebration of their lives, please do get in touch. My current home address and the address of the hotel in which I am staying can be found overleaf._

_I hope to hear from you and see you next month._

_Frederick P._

* * *

 The television hadn’t been on all evening. Not even quietly in the background as per usual. The windows were wide open which made the curtains ripple in the breeze. Those curtains had earlier been closed, shutting out the evening air, but he needed the natural light. He needed to see each petal and any blemish or imperfection they might have held. Each flower had to be perfect.

Dash was sat close to M on the sofa. Melbourne would occasionally move his hand to pet Dash’s head which was met with the dog resting himself on M’s lap until Melbourne moved again to pick up another flower from the coffee table. Though perhaps it was less of a coffee table than it was a sea of lilies, mimosa flowers, and freesias. Lilies had seemed too morbid at first, they had been at the funerals and they were used far too often in grief.

There had been people clad in black from head to toe with solemn faces. Black eye-shadow and nail polish were stuck on to the women, pearls clasped around their necks and wrists. The men were in their dark shirts and blazers, all spectres in black right down to their socks. Every person who had turned themselves into a shadow was surrounded by flashes of white lilies.

The smell had made Melbourne’s stomach churn for months. Sweet and sickly with an air of death that hung around for longer than it was welcome. Still, Caroline had loved them. She thought they were elegant and delicate, and could make even the shabbiest of apartments look graceful.

Dash was patient for attention as M weaved together the flowers into a small wreath. The larger one was already complete and sitting on the mantelpiece. Waiting.

The letter had done its waiting. Now it was being used as a coaster for his coffee cup. Victoria had playfully slapped his knee when he last left his mug on the glass table and dirtied it, smearing coffee rings and condensation over it. Melbourne made sure the cup was nowhere near where the addresses had been neatly copied out in a clear hand, different to Frederick’s usual script.

“You’ll never guess what Albert asked me today!” Victoria cried, coming through the apartment door and laughing in disbelief. Dash immediately hopped up and ran to her. She stopped when she saw the flowers and wreaths and let her grin drop respectfully. “Oh, sorry…I didn’t realise you were…”

Melbourne gave her a small smile and gestured for her to come in. “What did Albert ask you?”

She gently took a seat beside him on the sofa and let Dash jump up on her lap. She subconsciously scratched behind his ears. “He wants me to be godmother to his baby. Ernst has already agreed to be godfather by the sound of things.”

“How sweet of him,” Melbourne said, weaving in another lily. “What did you say?”

“That I would think about it,” she sighed. “I really wasn’t expecting him to ask…” Victoria trailed off. She couldn’t think about being a godmother when her boyfriend was making wreaths for his dead son and wife beside her.

The letter caught her attention; open and used like a napkin. It seemed so abnormal. She nodded towards it. “So, you’ve decided you’re going to go with him?”

He nodded. “It might be nice to have someone who understands how it feels on that day,” he begrudgingly admitted, refusing to look up from his flowers and meet Victoria’s sympathetic gaze. “Emma and Emily agreed to keep their distance. They always do.”

“Do you mind that?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I prefer it. I can’t stand the idea of people sitting around and feeling sorry for me.”

Victoria took a breath and reached out to touch a freesia, trying to harden up her eyes a little more. She wouldn’t make M feel as though he should be pitied. “These are very pretty. George would like them…perhaps the wreath is a little too…funeral-like for him though,” she considered, tilting her head.

An idea struck her like lightning and she nudged off Dash, fleeing downstairs without a word. Melbourne let her go with a cocked eyebrow and a glimmer of something that could have been a baffled smile.

She returned a few moments later, barely enough time to blink, carrying stems of blue. Melbourne watched her place the cornflowers amongst the lilies. She kept hold of one. In some lights, the petals looked sharp, like you could prick your finger and slip into a sleep like Sleeping Beauty. The rugged look of them was not helped by their shocking blue colour that heavily contrasted the more subdued and peaceful whites and natural greens the other flowers possessed.

There was a softness to the way she moved. She knelt on the floor, letting her knees press firmly against the floorboards, keeping hold of the cornflower. With her other gentle hand, Victoria prised the wreath from between Melbourne’s own hands, searching his face for signs that she should stop. When Melbourne didn’t react, she took it fully and began to weave in the cornflower. Then she did the same with another, going around until each lily was paired with vibrant blue. Her fingers moved lightly, expertly, nimbly, as though she were playing a delicately complicated musical instrument. As though making wreaths and arranging flowers came as second nature.

“There,” she said quietly, holding up the wreath. “That looks much more uplifting, don’t you think? It’s his birthday after all and birthdays are supposed to be as happy and as vibrant as you can make them.”

Melbourne nodded and made a considering sound. “You’re right…blue was his favourite.” His fingers edged towards the wreath. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad to help, even if it’s just a little bit,” Victoria told him, leaning up to kiss his shoulder. Her large blue eyes were looking up at him with genuine affection, sparkling in the setting August sunlight that was retreating through the apartment window.

With every blink of her dark lashes, Melbourne could feel his heart flutter back in a silent conversation with them. Victoria seemed a holy vision with the deepest love protruding from her heart and into her soul, her hair adorned in pastel flowers, and the soft hazy twilight draped around her like a halo.

He didn’t believe in angels, but oh, if he did, he was sure she would be one of them.

* * *

 A violent rock of the bed stirred Melbourne from his sleep, then the padding of bare feet on wood, and the slamming of the bathroom door. He looked at his watch from the bedside table: 6:30am. Something splashing in the bathroom. Retching. Melbourne winced and rubbed his eyes before throwing back the bed-sheet to follow the sound. He rapped on the door with his knuckles.

“Darling? Is everything okay in there?”

She answered by being sick again. He made sure that he had a glass of water and some plain, buttered toast ready for when she emerged. Victoria gave him a slightly embarrassed smile as she took the water and sipped. The pain from the cold and her freshly brushed teeth took over her body. Then the smell of the toast wafted by her and her face drained of any colour she had left.

“No,” she managed to croak out, taking a step back. “No food. I can’t stomach the idea of food.”

Melbourne nodded and took a bite of the toast himself before taking it back to the kitchen. He’d finish it later. Victoria was already curled up in bed by the time he came back, groaning into a pillow with the water on her nightstand.

“I must have eaten bad prawns yesterday,” she insisted weakly.

But what if she hadn’t?

No, no.

She must have done.

A hand on her back soothed her. Melbourne gently rubbed circles between Victoria’s shoulder blades and leaned over to kiss her temple. “Take the day off and go back to sleep.”

“Can you manage on your own?” She mumbled into the pillow. Too weak to argue this time.

“Of course,” he assured her. “Concentrate on getting better, alright?” he kissed her again. “I love you.”

Victoria made a soft sound and slowly drifted out of consciousness.

* * *

 The smash of a glass disbanded the crowd, all dancing and leaping to avoid the shards that scattered themselves across the floor and the splash of the coffee that came with it. A few people screamed, others looked down at the mess with an air of disdain, others barely blinked, some got fed up of waiting and carefully made their escape as Melbourne quickly budged through the customers to clean the mess.

Of course it would be busy on the one day Victoria was off sick. Skerret was presiding over the florist station as Mrs Jenkins brewed the coffee, but neither of them could work fast enough to dispel the ever-growing queues. Melbourne couldn’t quite split himself between cleaning, the two stations, and serving the fresh sandwiches as they came from Mrs Jenkins. He felt as though he was running around in circles and achieving nothing.

“Should you be down there like that at your age?” a voice teased.

Melbourne saw her silver glittery heels first, then the tight black skirt that sat above her knees, and the red, lowcut top that showed off her shoulders. It was so formfitting he wondered how she could possibly move in it.

“And where do you think you’re going dressed like that?” He asked, his voice stern as he picked up the last of the glass.

Emily snorted and fiddled with her dangly earrings. “You sound like Dad.”

“I wouldn’t have to sound like Dad if you weren’t dressed and acting like a nineteen-year-old at the age of thirty-nine.”

“Says the man who’s dating a woman young enough to be his daughter,” Emily quipped, watching her brother soak the spilled coffee with a tea towel. “I’m going out with Henry, if you must know. He’s taking me to the theatre, then to dinner, and possibly out dancing after. We’re making a real afternoon of it.”

Melbourne opened his mouth to answer but a customer in the crowd interrupted.

“Oi, what’s the hold up?”

“You pushed in first,” another answered.

“I didn’t! You need your eyes testing!”

The shouting grew louder and suddenly someone flew into a table, gasps and screeches filled the air followed by quiet mutterings. Emily strode towards the offending customer as Melbourne bounced up to tend to the teenager who had been thrown against the only empty table.

Emily practically grabbed the aggravated man by the shirt and shoved him out of the door. “And stay out!” She brushed her hands together as though she had been handling something dirty and stared him out until he disappeared down the road.

Mrs Jenkins dutifully brought over a cup of coffee for the boy Melbourne was profusely apologising to. “On the house, of course,” he told him as the boy took the coffee with a shaky smile. “Are you sure you don’t need to see someone about the injury?”

“It’s a bruise,” the boy insisted. “Thanks for offering though.”

Melbourne smiled and patted the boy’s shoulder, still holding the dustpan and brush full of broken glass and the tea towel over one arm. “It’s not a problem. I’ll leave you with Mrs Jenkins.”

Emily followed Melbourne behind the café counter, her heels clipping on the floor. “You need me here today, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t deny the extra help,” he admitted, putting on a smile for the next customer in front of the counter.

She silently squeezed her brother’s shoulder and bolted up the stairs much quicker than the average person in heels could. Five minutes went by in a matter of seconds, Melbourne making coffee after coffee, opening and closing the till systematically, providing smile after smile. Emily soon joined him behind the counter in sensible shoes and jeans with an apron tied tightly around her waist.

Time wouldn’t slow. Customers came and went, made friendly chit-chat, drank their tea and coffee, picked their flowers and designed their bouquets. Amongst the chaos of the day the anteater managed to worm his way in, clad in an apron that Emily had slipped to him when William wasn’t looking. Mrs Jenkins gave a gleeful grin when she saw and Skerret quietly pulled her boss aside to whisper in his ear, looking directly at Palmerston who was bussing tables with a sly smile. Skerret couldn’t deny that he was incredibly genuine in his help, however, laughing and making way for customers who tried to squeeze past. He held the door open for a woman who had coffee in one hand and was pushing a buggy with the other, her baby screaming its head off. Palmerston cooed at the child as they left, the mother smiling and thanking him.

Melbourne’s own smile dropped when Skerret quietly walked away from him. He turned on his heel to find Palmerston collecting empty glasses and wiping down a table. Emily walked by the anteater and placed a careful hand on the small of his back, grinning from ear to ear. She appeared to rest her chin on his shoulder for a second as she walked by, muttering something that made him laugh. Melbourne gently touched her wrist as they crossed paths on the shop floor.

“What is he doing here?” Melbourne asked her stiffly.

“I called to cancel our outing because you needed extra help. He volunteered his afternoon,” Emily explained. “I couldn’t well say no, you said yourself that you wouldn’t deny extra help.”

“He doesn’t work here and you didn’t ask me first,” M sighed. “We can’t pay him at any rate.”

“Henry doesn’t want to be paid,” Emily said easily. “He just wanted to help. It’s one day, William, I’m sure you’ll get over it. It’s so busy, you won’t even notice he’s here.”

Melbourne begrudgingly let her go back to work as another queue formed behind the café counter. He didn’t want to admit it, but having two extra pairs of hands on the shop floor helped move everything smoothly along as though the shop was running on a conveyer belt. Skerret taking control of the florist area, Mrs Jenkins back on the café counter, Emily and Palmerston serving food, bussing tables and washing the dishes, with Melbourne floating to wherever he was needed as co-owner and manager.

A welcome lull washed over the store an hour before closing. For the first time Melbourne could feel his heart beating that day and felt as though he could relax his shoulders. The abrupt emptiness and quiet a was blissful respite, made even more attractive by the fact the work day was almost over.

Oh. The work day was almost over.

Tomorrow would soon be here. His heart sank and shattered against his ribs as he remembered what day it was tomorrow. The world seemed dark and suffocating suddenly, like he was trapped under water, like there was a pressure on his head that would eventually make it pop.

Tomorrow.

His heart began to pick up its own pieces as he thought about Victoria – she always made things better. He only hoped that she felt better herself. Determined to take advantage of the quiet spell, Melbourne took a few pink roses tied together by their de-thorned stems with ribbon from the florist counter, and made his way back to their apartment.

She was in fresh pyjamas with her tied back, still curled up in bed with Dash beside her, reading one of Melbourne’s books and beamed when she saw him in the doorway.

“Busy day?” she asked. “It sounded like it earlier.”

He shrugged and sat next to her on the bed. “We coped. How are you feeling?”

“Well,” she admitted. “But I thought it was best if I stayed in bed, just in case.”

Melbourne nodded with a smile. “A wise choice.”

“I’ve been texting Emma and Flora,” she told him. “Emma thinks the three of us and Emily should go for lunch tomorrow. Do you mind?”

Melbourne took a sharp breath. “Not at all,” he asserted. “Here,” he handed her the roses. “I thought they might brighten up your day a little.”

Victoria took them hesitantly and sniffed. The concoction of stomach acid, weak tea, and toast roiled in her stomach. Her nose twitched and she involuntarily gagged, turning away from Melbourne and thrusting the flowers back towards him before she even knew what she was doing. “Eugh, get those away from me. They reek.”

The shattering was back in Melbourne’s chest and he withdrew from her, leaping off the bed. He gripped the roses tightly until they were practically wilting in his hands. “You usually love our roses.”

“And now I don’t,” Victoria said apologetically. “I’m sure I’ll feel better about it tomorrow. I guess my stomach is still a little queasy from the prawns.”

Melbourne nodded and gave her a tiny smile. “Of course. I’d better check Emily hasn’t run the shop into disrepair,” he joked, trying to raise a smile from Victoria, only turning away when she gave it to him.

He sniffed the roses himself on the way back down the stairs – he couldn’t smell anything. He dropped them back into the water bucket.

It was even quieter on the shop floor. Skerret and Mrs Jenkins were tidying up now no one was waiting at the counters. Melbourne frowned as he looked about.

“Where’s Emily and Mr Palmerston?” he asked the two women.

Mrs Jenkins had to stop herself from laughing, hiding her smile behind her dishcloth. “In the flower garden.”

Melbourne didn’t notice her laughter, instead he walked straight through the open back door and stepped outside. He was momentarily blinded by the sun and raised a hand to shield his eyes, scanning the small garden. There were two figures by the gate that Melbourne knew to be his sister and the anteater.

His eyes quickly grew accustomed to the sunlight which brought into focus Emily’s arms which were thrown over Palmerston’s shoulders, Palmerston’s arms around Emily’s waist, and their lips firmly locked together.


	5. Winds of Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melbourne and Frederick bond through shared grief as Victoria suffers at the hands of a different kind of affliction.

It was too dark to see much beyond the shadowy outline of Victoria sleeping soundly beside him. Dash’s light snoring could be heard from the foot of the bed and the low hum of the refrigerator across the narrow hall echoed off the walls and kitchen floor.

When he moved, the bed squeaked and rocked. Victoria turned, yawned, and fell back asleep. If only it were that easy for Melbourne to ignore the mild tremors of world as Victoria could ignore those in their bed. He moved restlessly again.

The moon through the window was too bright, the few sounds about the apartment were too loud, the summer air was too warm, everything was too much to allow Melbourne the respite of sleep. Even the gentle rhythmic ticking of his watch sounded like nails tapping on a chalkboard. When he took the watch from the nightstand it was only 11:55pm – a time that stirred a multitude of unpleasant spirits in his heart and stomach.

Barely any time had passed since he crawled into bed beside Victoria, but still the minutes had dragged by like tired hours. Many slow, painful hours still had to pass before he and Victoria were due to wake for the day. He wanted it to be morning, but did he really want the clock to strike midnight? It was the day he had been dreading – he was staring it in the face as it approached. The final few minutes came with the feeling of great fear, like he was looking down from the edge of a cliff. He wasn’t sure why. _It’s just another day_ , he told himself.

Melbourne stared at the watch until midnight, until his eyes became strained and hazy. He remained still, holding his breath, until the fear was replaced with relief. Nothing happened as the watch’s hands ticked over to 12:01am.

_Of course nothing happened_ , he thought, _it’s not the end of the world. It’s another day in August. Nothing terrible is to come from it, not really_. He pushed the watch back on the nightstand and turned to press his face against Victoria’s shoulder, gently wrapping an arm around her. She hummed happily in her sleep.

Twenty years seemed to have passed by in a blink.

Caroline nudged him with her elbow, speaking hurriedly, she eventually resorted to hitting him with a pillow to rouse him from his deep and blissful sleep.

“William!” she cried, clutching her stomach and remembering her breathing exercises from their antenatal classes. “I think the baby’s coming.” She yelled out again, shaking, stunned. “William!”

He rubbed his eyes, his head foggy and tired. It took longer than he cared to admit to realise what was happening. When his brain finally registered the meaning of her words as his knee hit the wet patch beside him, he leapt out of bed to grab the hospital bag and call for the ambulance. He wanted to call for a taxi but they had been advised to go via an emergency vehicle instead.

“Mum and Baby will need medical assistance right away,” the midwife had told him, her gentle voice at odds with the severity of her words. “It could be nothing,” she reminded him, “but we need to take precautions to make sure both are happy and healthy.”

Melbourne had nodded. “Is there a chance that one or both of them could die?” He spoke in a hushed voice, looking over his shoulder at Caroline in the hospital bed, a drip in her hand.

“It’s tough to say,” the midwife said regrettably. “There’s a chance, but I don’t think it’s one you need to concern yourself with too much. Baby will be disabled regardless of what happens, we know that from the scans, but we won’t be able to tell how badly until he’s born or if he will get worse as he gets older. You'll have to come in the ambulance when Caroline goes into labour.”

It had been a shock but they thought they could cope. Even when Caroline went into labour weeks early.

“You’re going to be okay,” he told her. “And Baby is going to be okay too, you’ll see.” He didn’t believe it, not fully anyway. But he needed Caroline to believe him, he needed her to be calm. Their baby needed her to be calm.

“Do you promise?” she asked, her eyes wide and trusting as she got out of bed, her hands shaking as much as her breaths.

He paused and swallowed the doubt into his stomach and gave her a smile. “I promise.”

Nine years, eleven months, and twenty-eight days later, the little boy who had smiled, curled his tiny hand around their fingers, yawned and cooed at his parents, who had batted his big, beautiful eyes at them, died.

Two years after that, Caroline was dead too, buried with her beloved son. The promises Melbourne had let slip from his tongue on this day twenty years ago were long dead also.

He turned back over and pulled the bed-sheet over his head.

* * *

The sick feeling was rising from the bow of her stomach again, slowly with a sense of foreboding until it was in her chest and her mouth was full of saliva, a tingling feeling in the back of her throat. She sat up sharply, hoping she wouldn’t wake Melbourne in the process. Victoria ran on her tiptoes to the bathroom where she proceeded to throw up the contents of her empty stomach, retching and heaving until her throat burned and stung instead of tingled. The spray splashed back in her hair. When she was sure she couldn’t be sick any more, she leaned away from the toilet bowl, wiping the back of her hand across her red mouth.

A shower sounded like heaven. The sound of the water hitting the base of the shower was comforting as she brushed her teeth. She waited for the water to warm up and for the steam to cloud the mirror and create condensation on the walls before she submerged herself under the shower. Raspberries filled the bathroom as she massaged her head with the shampoo – she turned her nose up at it and held her breath. The feel of the water on her bare skin was like a comforting caress. She could see her sickness and exhaustion wash down the drain as the fresh water replenished her skin.

She reached to turn off the shower and stepped out on to the wooden floor, grabbing the sink so as not to slip. Once Victoria had a firm footing, she wiped down the mirror with her hand to look at her soggy reflection. Her eyes were drawn down to her stomach – it didn’t look any different. She moved in front of the mirror, looking at herself from every angle she could and found nothing. Victoria ran her fingers across her skin and discovered it felt much the same. Yet, she felt so different. So… _unwell_. She furrowed her eyebrows together and glared at her reflection. She made a mental note to go to the pharmacy on her way home.

The quick knock on the bathroom door made her jump away from the mirror.

“Are you going to be long?” Melbourne asked, leaning against the door frame.

Victoria shook her head, forgetting he couldn’t see her, and wrapped a towel tightly around herself, keeping her hair unwrapped and dripping. She pulled open the bathroom door and gave him the best smile she could muster.

“Did I wake you?”

“No,” he assured her. “I just got up.” Melbourne gently kissed her good morning. “You look extra beautiful this morning.”

“I don’t feel it,” she admitted with a sigh, smiling good naturedly.

Melbourne gently touched the side of her face, wiping away some water from under her eye with his thumb. “Still feeling sick?”

“A little. Nothing I can’t fix with an apple and ginger smoothie,” she said cheerily. “I might try and have a banana for breakfast too.”

Melbourne nodded and let his hand fall back to his side. “Try putting some nuts and mint in that smoothie too. Caroline found nuts and mint really helpful when she was pregnant.”

Wait, what?

Did he just say the word? Did he know? Did he suspect? How could he when even she wasn’t sure? Why hadn’t he said anything before if he had known or suspected? Wasn’t today the worst day for them to be talking about this?

Her eyes widened and her throat drained of all moisture. She pretended to act calm, silencing the mini version of herself that was screaming in her head.

“What?” she said eventually.

He shrugged. “When Caroline was pregnant she got nauseous a lot, but a handful of nuts and a bit of fresh mint seemed to really help. I thought if you felt a bit nauseous from the prawns still, it might help.”

Victoria’s shoulders relaxed. “Oh…Thank you, I’ll try it.”

Melbourne tilted his head, reminiscent of Dash when he didn’t understand something. “Is everything alright?”

She waved a hand at him. “I’m fine. Getting chilly from standing around in nothing but a towel though,” she laughed.

He stepped away from the door to let her pass through to the bedroom.

* * *

The walk to the cemetery with his wreaths in hand was long. He barely noticed the pitying looks from strangers or the sun shining down into his eyeline. Pigeons cawed around his feet and a bee hovered alongside him, occasionally bumping happily into the wreaths. The pointed tips of the black iron fence came into view first, then the first few hints of gravestones, a gravel path, the grey stone bricked church covered in ivy. His heavy feet crunched against the grass, an eerie silence over the ground.

Graveyards always seemed creepier during the day. They’re so often equated with the night - books and TV love using the dark to portray macabre places like cemeteries. Melbourne blamed poets for that. You almost expect graveyards to be permanently encased in darkness, surrounded by mist, crows camouflaged into the night and lying in wait. Graveyards in the day were out of place. The energy surrounding them was different somehow, like reality was altered: the feeling of a petrol station on a motorway, the empty 24/7 McDonald’s at 3am, school’s during the summer, airports and hospital waiting rooms, a graveyard in daylight…all exist but feel as though they shouldn’t.

The gargoyles on the graves and church looked frozen in place like they had been moving through the night and got themselves stuck in the sunrise, baring their teeth and claws to defend those departed.

Caroline had been reserved when they thought about the burial. She didn’t think any patch of ground was worthy of her son’s final resting place, a sentiment that Melbourne shared, but not one that was overly practical. They had settled for a patch underneath a tree. Light would flood in during the day that left a light shadow on the earth, providing shade under the over-reaching branches.

They rarely went on picnics as a family – George was too ill most of the time to get out of the house. On the rare days he was energetic and happy enough to enjoy the summer, they found a large tree in which to take camp under for the afternoon. Caroline had the wicker basket and blanket on the crook of her arm whilst Melbourne had George on his hip, making funny faces at him until the little boy kicked happily and blew a snot bubble.

He stopped fast in front of one modest headstone, bowing his head and gently squeezing the wreaths close to him. The stone was rounded, weather-worn cracks beginning to show and earthy moss growing from the bottom and up the sides. Still, the words could be seen as though they had been carved into the rock only yesterday.

**George Frederick Lamb-Melbourne  
**  
11th August 1997 – 8th August 2007  
  
_God’s garden has need of little flowers.  
_  
_Together again with his mother,  
_  
**Caroline Lamb-Melbourne**  
  
13th November 1973 – 15th August 2009  
  
_If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,  
_  
_I could walk in my garden forever._

Melbourne knelt in the grass and gently propped the wreaths against the stone, the large one first and then the smaller with flashes of electric blue in front of it, as though the larger were cradling the smaller. When he reached out to touch the stone, it was cold beneath his hand despite the sun, the tree branches saving it from the heat. He leaned forward to press his lips against it, closing his eyes and letting the cool rock and shadowy air spread over his skin. A cold slab of the grave would have to do as a substitute for the flesh of his lost family.

He slowly raised his heavy head but kept his fingers on the stone, reluctant to let them go again.

“Happy Birthday, Georgie,” Melbourne muttered, then laughed. “You’d probably hate me calling you that by now. Twenty is too old for nicknames,” he smiled. “I hope your mother is looking after you…or that you’re both looking after each other. Caroline, I hope you’ve got a picnic planned for George…it’s a wonderful day for it and you’ve already got a permanent spot under the tree.” He sighed and let his hand drop from the grave. “I’m sorry I don’t visit often,” he said, berating himself. “I never know what to say or do when I’m here. I’m not one for outwardly grieving in public. I’d much rather be at home right now,” Melbourne admitted. “In my pyjamas, reading, thinking quietly, but I promised Frederick I’d come…and speak of the devil,” he added, watching a man slowly hobble down the path from the other end of the graveyard.

Frederick leaned heavily on his walking stick, a limp present in his left leg from where the joints were beginning to seize together with arthritis. He raised his hand towards Melbourne with a gentle smile. Melbourne shook the man’s hand, smiling back as best as he was able.

“It’s good to see you again,” Frederick told him. “You look younger than I remember.”

The corner of Melbourne’s mouth turned up. “The last time we saw each other I was stressed and grieving. It’s amazing what time can do to you.”

“Very true,” Frederick said with a smile, looking towards the grave. He sighed and muttered a happy birthday to his grandson and a hello to his daughter. Melbourne pretended not to listen as his ex-father-in-law made quiet conversation and prayer. “That bench up there,” Frederick said to Melbourne minutes later, pointing to the lone seat a few feet away. “Will you sit with me a while?”

Melbourne nodded and linked his arm with Frederick as they made the short walk to the bench, the older of the two grateful for the physical and emotional support. They sat in soft contemplation, watching the wispy clouds move across the sky with the gentle breeze and other mourners walk through the grass to their loved ones. The bells of the church rang deep and slow. An intimate group emerged from the church, huddled together. A woman’s face contorted in anguish before she sobbed into a handkerchief. A young man put his arm around her shoulder as birds sang in the distance.

“Such beautiful flowers,” Frederick said once the church bells had ceased to sound, looking to Melbourne’s wreaths. “You’ve always been so good at cultivating plants. Georgie would love those blue ones,” he paused to scratch his wrinkled chin. “I never understood though, why you never went back into politics after George and Caroline died.”

“I didn’t have the energy to,” Melbourne admitted, running his fingers through his hair self-consciously, as though someone could ask him to go back into the field any second. “I think I have the energy now, but the shop has become such an unexpected success…” he shuffled in his seat. “Plus, the shop gave me Victoria…the blue flowers were her idea,” Melbourne said tentatively. “I don’t think I could give it all up to fall back into the uncertainty politics.”

It had taken Melbourne a year to finally decide that he couldn’t keep working in politics when his wife and infant child were unwell. He couldn’t be away when his vulnerable family needed him to look after and provide for them. Caroline was too weak to work for the year following George’s birth and George himself was a sickly and disabled baby who couldn’t be away from Mum or Dad. Melbourne and Caroline decided to pool their savings to buy the florists and flat above it and an allotment not far away, becoming a self-sufficient family, growing their own fruits and vegetables and flowers to sell. It had been the perfect solution. He could be downstairs working and providing, knowing that Caroline and George were safe upstairs and he could be there in a matter of seconds if either one of them needed him.

But then they died. He didn’t know what to do with himself or the shop. He wasn’t sure how to go back into the political world, he couldn’t bring himself to sell his shop and flat that held so many memories, he even wanted to keep hold of the bad ones. The screaming, the shouting, the insults, the crying, the accusations, the sleepless nights…all of it. He needed to keep everything that had come with his perfectly imperfect family.

Seven years went by monotonously, doing the same thing day by day, month after month, year upon year. The sudden absence of a sickly child and wife and their declining marriage made his life agonisingly dull. It was agonising before but he didn’t have enough time to sit down and think about it.

Then one day a car arrived with a girl so beautiful that she almost winded him just by looking at him with her diamond eyes and her gleeful smile. Her musical laughter swept away the clouds and made him fall in love again, suddenly and unexpectantly. She burst through the doors and fell head first into his little life.

“Victoria,” Frederick said slowly. “The new girlfriend?”

“Yes,” Melbourne hesitated. His shoulders slumped forward and he linked his fingers together on his knees. He chewed on his lip. “The fact that I love Victoria now doesn’t mean that I loved your daughter any less.”

Frederick smiled gently and patted Melbourne’s knee. “I know. I don’t think Caroline or George would have expected you to stay single for the rest of your life. You’re still young, William. Plus, you and Caroline never were good for each other in the end. I’m glad you can find happiness again, especially since Caroline can’t.”

“Thank you,” Melbourne said with a shaky smile. “I think if he were still with us, George would have liked Victoria.”

Frederick laughed from his chest. “I think he would’ve been embarrassed that his Dad was in a relationship with a girl only five years older than him.”

Melbourne sat back on the bench, laughing too, looking out towards the gravestone. “I think you might be right.”

* * *

Children ran carelessly across the grass of St James’ Park, toddlers were enraptured by the birds on the water, their mothers gossiped quietly together, their fathers trailing behind with their hands in their shorts pockets with shirts over their shoulders. The sun cast leafy shadows on the grass, the trees stood proud and cast in emerald, framing the pale view of Buckingham Palace in the distance.

Emily had her face turned towards the sun as they walked, looking for the perfect spot to relax for the afternoon. She was laughing, the lines around her mouth deep from joy. “You should have seen the look on poor William’s face when he caught us! He looked absolutely mortified. Horrified, even! He even called me a ‘little devil’ and he hasn’t done that since I was in my early twenties!”

“You are still married,” Emma pointed out. “And William really isn’t very fond of Mr Palmerston. I suppose it came as quite the shock.”

Flora shook her head, cradling the growing bump of her stomach. “I can’t believe you would do that to Peter! Do your marriage vows mean nothing?”

“They’ve meant nothing to us for a long time,” Emily said freely, throwing her arms open wide to embrace the air, walking with a skip in her step. “I’m going to file for divorce! I don’t know when because I need to find somewhere to live, preferably in London, and then what about the kids? Peter is a wonderful father. It’s not fair to deprive the kids of either one of us, but at the same time it’s not fair to move them around to visit us.”

“And George starts secondary school next year,” Emma reminded her. “It’s a big step for him. His parents divorcing would be quite the disruption.”

“It’s a tricky situation,” Emily agreed. Flora nodded, understanding.

Victoria trailed behind them, listening in, too tired to say much more than, “M’s son was called George too, wasn’t he?”

Emily slowed her walk and lifted her sunglasses from her face to rest them on her head. “My son was born about a month after William’s son died,” she explained. “Peter and I named our baby George in honour of my little nephew. William wasn’t happy about it at first…he thought Peter and I should have given our baby a name of his own…but he’s our George and he’s got a totally different personality to the cousin he never got to meet.” Emily sighed. “William understood quickly that we weren’t trying to replace his George, if anything we were simply keeping the name going. We have a brother named George too! It’s a family name.”

Her voice came out thick and fast but still there was an air of sadness about her demeanour. She tried to pick up her mood again by pushing her sunglasses to her face so she could turn back towards the sun.

Flora took her hand-held fan from her bag, holding it by her forehead. “Do you think Mr Melbourne is okay? I heard that today was supposed to be his George’s birthday.”

Emma sighed and the four women stopped their walk on the bridge, leaning against the railing. Victoria found herself becoming light-headed again and gripped the rail for dear life, glad the others were too pre-occupied with talk of Melbourne to notice.

“He’ll be okay,” Emma told Flora. “He hates being disturbed on these anniversaries…It’s best that we stay away from him until he’s ready. He can get extremely emotional but it usually only lasts the day.”

“Dear William,” Emily sighed. “I wish we could make things better for him…but he has his own way of grieving and we need to respect it, don’t we, Victoria? You remember last year,” She looked over to Victoria to find her breathing heavily over the railing, the colour completely drained from her face. “Victoria? Are you feeling alright?”

She waved a limp hand. “I’m fine. The warm weather has taken its toll on me.”

Flora dug around her bag to hand Victoria a bottle of water. She drank fast from it and gave a thankful smile. Emma started walking again, insisting that there was a perfect spot just a little further on and they could all rest there.

The park became blurry as they walked from the bridge, the grass and the sky merged in green and blue streaks until neither colour was distinguishable from the other. A sick feeling was creeping back up her throat, an ache pounded in Victoria’s skull and walking became laboured and exhausting. Her feet felt as though they were made of marble. Her body slouched forwards and her eyes fluttered closed. She reached for the railing of the bridge but she was already too far ahead – she fell to the floor, her head drumming against the ground.

“Victoria!”

She couldn’t tell whose voice it was.

“Somebody call for an ambulance!”

“She’s been ill for weeks…”

“Call William!”

“Ambulance, please!”

“Victoria? Can you hear me?”

Darkness and silence quickly followed.

* * *

The shop and apartment was empty when Melbourne showed Frederick inside. Melbourne brewed coffee as Frederick made himself comfortable at a table, listening to M as he talked about the art on the walls, the decorating process, the flowers that were currently in season. The unusual stillness of the shop surprised Melbourne when he turned to see only a withered Frederick at one table. If they had been open then every table would be full and lively, but not today. Never today.

“It’s beautiful in here,” Frederick said, taking his coffee with a smile. “Caroline and George would be so proud to see how far you’ve progressed.”

“Thank you,” Melbourne sipped at his black coffee. “They’ve never been far from my mind…I never wanted this place to feel as though they had never been here.”

“It shows,” Frederick agreed. “You still have Caroline’s clock,” he noticed, looking around. “And George’s etchings in the florist counter top.”

Melbourne smiled fondly. “Yeah…Victoria’s been great about me keeping their stuff around. I didn’t think she would be quite as understanding as she is.”

The trill of the shop’s phone made Frederick jerk in his seat. Melbourne sipped at his coffee again and shrugged a shoulder. “We’re closed today. If it’s important then they’ll leave a message.”

It rang over and over until the voice message tone kicked in and Emily’s frantic voice filled the café. “Answer your fucking phone, William!” Melbourne shot a quick apologetic glance at the elderly man opposite him. “Victoria’s in hospital and you need to get down here as quickly as possible. She’s refusing to tell any of us what the doctor has said until she’s seen you.”

Melbourne shot up and scrambled for the phone, sending his chair flying and skidding across the floor as his long legs wobbled urgently across the room. “Hospital?” he managed to say as he answered the phone.

“Yes!” Emily said, exasperated. “We’ve been calling and texting you all afternoon! I know you don’t want to be disturbed but we thought you’d want to know.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s not dying or anything if that’s what you mean,” Emily sighed, worry still peeking through. “The doctors have told her something but she won’t tell us what’s happening because she wants to see you first. She’s insisting that you come and see her immediately.”

Melbourne sighed and scratched his forehead. “Okay. Which hospital?”

“St Thomas’. Hurry up, okay, she seems quite upset. I’ve already texted you what ward she’s on.”

He didn’t say goodbye, instead he slammed the phone down and fled outside to flag down a taxi, apologising profusely to Frederick, promising he would be back and he should make himself at home.

Melbourne couldn’t keep his leg still in the taxi, it jumped up and down rhythmically with his breathing. He picked at his lip with his fingernails, looking out of the car window and trying to see over the traffic, wishing it would part like the Red Sea for the car to zoom through at top speed.

Somehow Melbourne found his legs moved faster than his brain. He didn’t even stop running when doctors told him to as he raced through the clinical corridors. Emily and Emma had to stop him from crashing into the wall. They grabbed his arms and shoulders and held him tightly until his body slowed. They kept him still until his breathing steadied, a wheeze coming from his chest.

“Hey, hey,” Emma said, her voice calm but authoritative. “Not so fast. You’re working yourself up.”

“You tell me my girlfriend is in hospital and you expect me not to work myself up? I hate hospitals,” he grumbled.

Emily squeezed her brother’s shoulders. “I know. We told Victoria that hospitals weren’t your favourite place and reminded her you wanted to be alone…but she was adamant that you came.”

“Where is she?” he asked, looking around.

“They put her in a private cubicle to calm down,” Emma said, making her way towards the room. Melbourne followed with Emily quick on his heels. He brushed down his now-crinkled shirt and trousers as Emma knocked and opened the door.

Flora was sat in the chair next to the bed, handing Victoria tissues as she cried. Victoria lifted her head to reveal her puffy red face and mascara stained eyes. Her nose was cherry coloured and her lips were chapped. There were three neat stitches on her forehead. She smiled at her M despite it all and held out her hand to him.

The three other women quietly took their leave and Flora shut the door behind her. Melbourne squeezed Victoria’s hand and kissed her knuckles, then kissed her forehead and lips before taking his seat beside her.

“What happened?” he whispered.

“I fainted and hit my head,” she explained. “I tried to break my fall with my hands, which helped…but I still managed to hit my head. They want to keep me in overnight to make sure I don’t have concussion, especially since,” she choked up again and sniffed, grabbing another tissue in which to wipe her eyes and then blow her nose. “especially since I collapsed heavily in my current condition…”

Melbourne frowned and tilted his head. He squeezed her hand again and sat forward on his chair to stroke the hair away from her face. “What do you mean?”

She took a shaky breath and finally met his gentle and concerned eyes. “M, I’m pregnant.”


	6. Melbourne's Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's only just heard Victoria's news but Melbourne can't stop himself comparing now to the past.

The tiny lights draped around the window and scrawny artificial tree glowed like a thousand tiny candles in the dark. Her face was beaming behind the mug of hot chocolate she cradled in her hands, the bottom of the mug touching her knees which she had pulled up to her chest. Her cinnamon eyes fixed firmly on the living room door, her gentle mouth muttered the words repeatedly, practicing the announcement before he got home. The excitement built in her every time she said it to herself – she had to bite down on her lip to stop herself from screaming it to the whole neighbourhood.

_How should I say it?_ She wondered, tucking her hair behind her ear. _Quickly? Slowly? In a joke? With a photograph?_ So many opportunities to mention it and yet she couldn’t focus on one. She didn’t imagine it would be so difficult…she thought the words would come easily but the joy kept trapping them in her mouth and mind.

A rattle of keys in the door. Caroline’s heart jumped into her throat and she clutched her mug until her knuckles turned as white as the fake snow on their window frames.

“Honey, I’m home!” he laughed, making his way through the front door. Six months of marriage later and the novelty of the phrase still hadn’t faded (unlike their Egyptian suntans.) William smiled as though it had been the first time he’d looked at his wife. He leaned over to kiss her. “How was your day?”

Caroline watched him loosen his tie and pop open the collar on his shirt, pretending to be nonchalant with a yawn. “Oh, you know…fine,” she said, pressing her smile against her mug. “I have an early Christmas present for you though.”

“Is it showing me how cute you look in my jumper?” William asked, flopping down on the sofa and gently pulling on the sleeve of the burgundy cable-knit jumper that was too large for her.

She shook her head. “Do you want to guess again?”

William pursed his lips together. “Is it a new tie?” He pointed to the wrinkled and stained paisley one hanging around his neck.

“No.” Caroline shook her head again, grinning. “Do you give up?”

“Yeah, I give up,” he sighed and ran a hand through Caroline’s hair. “What is it?”

She moved her mug away from her mouth so the words could tumble freely from her excitable mouth. “I’m pregnant…we’re having a baby!”

His body was frozen, eyes pulled wide and staring at her face, searching for evidence that she was joking.

“Did you hear me?” she said. “M, I said I’m pregnant. We’re having a baby.” Victoria blew her nose into another tissue, watching Melbourne as his mind whirred and short-circuited in front of her. A quiet beep from hospital machinery outside rhythmically sounded in time with her own breaths.

Melbourne nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat. “But that’s impossible…we used- “

“It’s not completely reliable,” Victoria sobbed. “Apparently, there’s a two percent chance of a condom not working.” She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes as though she were trying to keep the tears in their ducts and shook her head in disbelief. “It’s early days but they want me to have a scan later this afternoon to make sure the baby is okay after the fall.” She sniffed and let her hands drop so she could tear up the tissues in her lap instead. “There’s no bleeding so they’re pretty confident there’s nothing wrong though. They’re not rushing me in so I guess everything’s alright.”

“That’s…” Melbourne sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “A lot to take in…”

“I know,” Victoria said quickly. “And I didn’t want to talk to you about the pregnancy today because I thought you had enough to worry about, but then I collapsed and I knew I would have to tell you.”

Melbourne sat up straight and furrowed his brows together. “You already knew?”

“I sort of had an idea,” she admitted quietly. “But I wasn’t sure so I asked the Doctor to do a test for me…I was going to pick one up on my way home anyway. I didn’t want to worry you…” She burst into tears again.

Every tear that fell from Victoria’s cheeks made Melbourne forget about his own anxiety. He took a deep breath and gave her an encouraging smile before sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs round so he was lying beside her. Instinctively, Victoria rested her head on his chest, calming down as he put his arms around her and gently squeezed. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.

“You’re worrying me now,” he said against her temple. “Why are you crying?”

“Hormones, I guess,” she said with a laugh. “I just can’t believe this is actually happening. This sort of thing happens to other couples, not us.”

He sighed and kissed her again, rocking her gently. “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out. For now, get some rest. We can talk about it tomorrow when it’s sunk in for us both and we know what we’re dealing with after the scan.”

Victoria nodded and kissed Melbourne’s collarbone. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Well, you probably wouldn’t be pregnant for a start,” he teased gently, relieved when Victoria let out a quiet laugh. “Get some sleep and I’ll go home and pack you an overnight bag. Do you want one of the girls outside to stay with you in the meantime?”

“No,” she huffed. “No, I’m tired of them fussing over me. I only want you and a nap.”

“I’ll come back as soon as I possibly can,” he promised, easing himself away from her to slip off the bed.

Within seconds Victoria was curled up in the bed and yawning, her heavy eyelids crashing closed. “Don’t tell anyone,” she mumbled. “Not even Emily or Emma…don’t say a word…”

“I won’t,” he said firmly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered into the pillow, promptly falling asleep, emotionally and physically exhausted.

Stillness followed for minutes after. Melbourne could feel his heart beating in his ears but the rest of his body was numb, his mind blank. He wiggled his fingers but they felt like someone else’s, he couldn’t tear his feet from the floor to walk away. The muffled voices of doctors and his friends outside the door sounded foreign, the bright and clinical lights of the hospital room made him squint. Not even Victoria lying still in the bed seemed real. He was half expecting his hand to fall through her head as he leaned over to stroke her hair, but it didn’t. At the kind touch, Melbourne found his hands felt like his again, his feet were ready to run, the tangibility of the noise and the lights hit all his senses at once. It was real. Everything around him was real and Victoria was pregnant with his baby.

He sent Flora and Emma away, feigning that she and he were okay, that Victoria would be fine; _she’s a little upset and embarrassed over the fall, that’s all. She needs to sleep it off._

Emily could not be fobbed off so easily in the taxi back home.

The buildings and cars zoomed by in a blur. Melbourne focused his eyes on the colours, counting everything red he could find, mumbling the number to himself as he scratched at his bottom lip with his thumbnail. Emily sighed and gently nudged her brother’s arm.

“Hey,” she said. “She’ll be okay.”

“I know,” he snapped and then rubbed his forehead. “Sorry…I know.” He turned to face her with an empty smile. “Thanks for your concern.”

Emily nodded and tapped on her knees. “Sorry if I’m prying but…” she paused to lick her top lip. “Victoria’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

Melbourne frowned, a crease deep set in his forehead. “You’re not supposed to know. She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“I’ve been through it three times,” Emily argued. “I know what early pregnancy looks like. Plus, you’ve got that alarmed and worried look you had when Caroline said she was pregnant again.” She touched the wrinkle above his nose. “History won’t repeat itself, Will,” she assured him. “All the Doctors you saw said Caroline’s body couldn’t cope with being pregnant again. It had nothing to do with you.”

His fists tightened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“We’re going to talk about it tomorrow and decide where to go from there,” he said, looking back out of the window.

“Okay,” Emily said again. “At least this is a good distraction from me and Henry,” she grinned, lightly teasing him.

“Definitely not!” Melbourne said sternly. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at? I can’t believe you would do something so ill-advised and unwise. What about Peter and the kids?”

Emily looked out of the window with a smile as Melbourne continued his lecture.

* * *

 The shop was empty by the time the siblings had returned and the spare key had been tossed into a plant pot outside. The chair that Melbourne had knocked over had been returned to its usual place, their coffee cups had been washed and placed back on the counter. A simple note had been left on the table in Frederick’s usual hand.

_William,_

_I’m sorry to hear that Victoria is unwell – I do hope she makes a speedy recovery. Perhaps we can do this again some time? I think I have some old photos of Caroline and George in the attic somewhere. I hope you found the key in the flowers._

_Frederick P._

“How did it go with Frederick?” Emily asked, spotting the letter. “Not too awkward?”

“Surprisingly it was okay,” Melbourne said, rushing upstairs to his apartment with Emily in hot pursuit behind him. “He seems to like Victoria too and they haven’t even met.”

Emily laughed. “Everyone likes Victoria, Will. It’s very hard not to.”

“I know,” he grinned, searching for a spare travel bag in their room. “I’m very lucky…and now she’s pregnant with my baby.” He didn’t think he’d get used to saying it.

“How do you feel?” Emily asked, picking out some spare clothes and pyjamas from the wardrobe and drawers.

He paused, putting the bag on the bed for Emily to fill. “Conflicted and terrified,” he said eventually. “I’m absolutely terrified.”

“Get the terror out now,” Emily instructed, picking up Victoria’s hairbrush from the bedside table. “Because she’s never done this before. I know you’ve got your reasons to be terrified and they’re good reasons,” she added, seeing Melbourne about to argue. “But you’ve been through it before and she hasn’t. Victoria looked so upset earlier.” She dropped the hairbrush into the bag.

“I think it’s the shock,” Melbourne said. He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. “I’m not sure I’m ready to be a father again.”

Emily snorted and half-skipped to the bathroom to collect Victoria’s toothbrush and some soap. “It’s the shock,” she called, mocking him. “You were a great father, Will. I’m sure you will be again.”

“I’m not sure I _want_ to be a father again,” he sighed, staring down at Emily’s fringed sandals and pink toenails as she re-entered the room.

The bed rocked as she sat beside him. “Is that because you’re scared the baby or Victoria might be unwell or because you just don’t want to be a father?”

Melbourne paused, rubbing his hands together. The collar of his shirt felt tight against his neck. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I really don’t know.”

She put her arms around him, holding him in a tight hug. She kissed her brother’s head and rubbed between his shoulder blades. After a moment, he hugged back which made Emily kiss him again. “Talk with Victoria about it tomorrow. I know you’ll do what’s right for you both. There’s no point stressing about it today, it’s too soon and new to have a clear mind about it.”

“Why did it have to be today we find out?” Melbourne asked into her shoulder. “It’s George’s birthday and we’re fussing over a baby that isn’t even born. A baby that barely exists.”

Emily nodded, smiling bitterly at the cruel irony. “Maybe it’s a sign from the universe that this might be a good thing? You’ve been given another chance on the birthday of your first child – that must mean something.”

“It might a trick,” he said. “It might mean nothing at all.”

“You won’t know for a while,” Emily allowed. “Just,” she sighed and squeezed him before letting go. “Don’t do anything you and Victoria might regret. Have a really in-depth talk and take your time to make a decision.”

Melbourne stood and nodded, turning to zip the bag back up and swing it over his shoulder. “Thanks. I’d better go – don’t do anything stupid,” he said firmly. “Don’t invite Palmerston around. He’s the last thing we need snooping around.”

Emily puffed out her chest defensively. “He’s nothing a _thing_ , he’s a person! And, honestly, I think I’m falling in love with him.” She grinned sheepishly and twirled her hair around her finger, beyond the point of caring what her brother thought of her or Henry Palmerston.

Melbourne pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh and closed his eyes. He silently counted to three. “Jesus Christ, Emily,” he exhaled. “One crisis at a time, please.”

* * *

 She was still absent from the ward. A man in a white coat could be seen through the glass pane of the private room – he had his back to the door and the top of her dark head could be seen over his shoulder as he talked softly to her, trying not use too much medical jargon or be too blunt to upset her further. William watched through the pane, his hand lingering on the handle, imagining what more the Doctor could be telling her.

It could be anything at this stage. He pressed his ear against the door and strained to hear but only silence came of it. He couldn’t see her face or the Doctor’s to know what was going on either…he’d have to open the door. Of course, that would mean facing up to the truth of the situation. He would have to eventually, the sooner the better, right?

He pushed on the silver-coated handle which made the Doctor spin round on his heel, a solemn expression on his face. Frederick was in the chair beside his daughter, staring at William as he entered the room and then at the short bouquet of lilies and freesias in his hand. The overnight bag hung from his shoulder.

“I came as quickly as I could,” William said, trying to smile. “The traffic in Westminster is terrible.”

The Doctor held out his hand for William to shake. “Mr Lamb-Melbourne and the baby’s father, I assume?”

“Yes,” he said, pushing past to put the bouquet next to his wife on the table. Caroline was lily-white and staring straight ahead at the wall. She didn’t bother to lift her head and greet him. “Is something wrong?” He kissed Caroline’s hair, feeling his heart drop down into his stomach. She had been bleeding, of course there was something wrong, but he had to ask. He had to be sure.

“I’m sorry, Mr Lamb,” the Doctor said, taking a few steps forward, his hand stretched out to touch William’s shoulder. “It’s still too early to be specific so we don’t know what’s going to happen yet,” he told him. “But we’ve found a serious anomaly on the ultrasound.”

Melbourne pushed on the door handle with his breath caught in his throat, giving Victoria and the Doctor inside a broad smile. He shook the Doctor’s hand.

“You must be Mr Melbourne,” the man in the white coat said. “I’m Doctor Thompson. I was just telling Miss Hanover that we’ll be ready to take her down for the scan soon so she needs to drink lots of water.”

“I will, Doctor,” Victoria insisted.

“Excellent. Congratulations to you both. A nurse will be along in about half an hour to take you to the ultrasound department.”

Melbourne nodded and thanked Doctor Thompson as he left, immediately going to hug Victoria as soon as he was out of sight. Victoria clutched him tightly, grateful and relieved that he was back. She had only slept for ten minutes but the redness and puffiness in her face was gone, she had wiped the streaky mascara from her cheeks, her nose had stopped running and she had cleared the soggy and ripped tissues from the bed.

“I’m scared, M,” she whispered. “I’m really scared.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her again. “I’m here, the Doctors are here…Nothing bad will happen, I promise.” He let go of her to drop the overnight bag at the end of the bed. “I’ll get you some more water.”

The next half an hour went by in countless plastic cups of water from the cooler further down the corridor. A nurse with short bleach-blonde hair and a cheery expression led the way to the ultrasound department, Victoria insisted that she would walk instead of being dragged around the hospital by a bed or a wheelchair.

It was the off-white walls contrasted against the pale blue bed with its paper sheet draped over it that sent Melbourne back to the last time he had been for an ultrasound. The monitor was off but already he could see the fuzzy black and white image of something that didn’t look quite human yet. He expected the worst but hoped for the best.

The sonographer put the cold gel on Caroline’s stomach, making general chat to ease the ever-growing tension in the room. William held Caroline’s hand the whole time, biting down on his bottom lip but then smiled every time his wife looked to him for comfort. Words began to slow as the sonographer studied the image on screen, her face screwed up in concentration.

“I’m very sorry,” she said after she had fetched another Doctor to come and look at the image. “But there’s no heartbeat.”

William’s head dropped on to their clasped hands, closing his eyes. Caroline ripped her hand away from him and sat up on the bed.

“No! It must be some kind of mistake!” she wailed. “We just buried our son,” she screamed, the tears already rolling down her face. “We just buried our nine-year-old son! We can’t have lost our daughter too…We can’t…”

“I’m sorry,” the sonographer repeated. “It’s not a mistake. Because you’re twenty-three weeks this is technically what we call a late miscarriage,” she explained. “Unfortunately, this does mean we’ll need to induce labour right away.”

Caroline moaned, her fists balled up as she quickly launched herself at the sonographer. William caught her by the wrists and held her back to the bed, gently rocking her and kissing her head, trying to keep her calm. The sonographer took a few steps back, ready to call for extra help if Caroline tried to lash out again.

She squirmed against him, still howling in despair. “Get off me!” Caroline cried. “This is your fault, William! They’re going to make me give birth to our dead daughter and it’s your fault!”

“And if you look there,” the sonographer said, looking between Victoria and Melbourne with a smile, the picture already up on the screen, much to Melbourne’s surprise. “That is your baby. Thankfully, all looks perfectly normal, so the fall you had earlier gave you a bump to the head and did no harm to this little bump,” she said proudly. “Can you see that little fluttering part there? That’s baby’s heartbeat.”

Victoria sat up a little further to get a better look at the small, irregular lump surrounded in black on the screen. “It’s tiny…” she said quietly, unable to move her concerned eyes and crumpled brows away.

“It’s quite early in your pregnancy,” the sonographer reminded her. “From what you’ve told us about when your last period was and your usual cycle, you’re about eight weeks from conception, almost nine, but we would consider you to be ten weeks pregnant.”

When Victoria said nothing but instead fell back in the bed, Melbourne asked, “Could you give us an estimated due date from that?”

“Sure,” the sonographer said. “That will be the fourth of March, but of course things don’t always happen on time. Would you like to take a photo of the scan away with you today?”

Victoria still had her eyes glued to the screen, her mouth slightly ajar with her hands planted firmly at her sides. She only turned when Melbourne said _yes_  without thinking about it first. He gave her an apologetic look as the sonographer printed the image and handed it to Melbourne.

They were quiet as they made their way back to Victoria’s private room. Both had a million thoughts rushing through their minds, occasionally they would look to one another, hoping that they could silently converse about the scan but their eyes remained blank and unreadable. Doctor Thompson promised he would be in to check on Victoria and her head injury soon.

In the meantime, she changed into her pyjamas as Melbourne sat heavily in the chair, staring down at the scan photo. Part of him felt nothing towards it, whilst the other half of him battled to feel everything.

“I can’t believe you said yes to having the photo,” Victoria said flatly. “We haven’t even talked about this yet. We don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“No,” he agreed. “But if we decide to have this baby then we have a copy of the first scan. If we don’t…” he paused and slipped the photo into his pocket when Victoria refused to take it from him. “If we don’t, we can throw it away. No harm done.”

She climbed into bed with a nod. “Fine,” she smiled as the Doctor came to ask her more basic questions and test her co-ordination.

“We can send you home tomorrow morning,” Doctor Thompson said with confidence. “We would send you now but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I would suggest that you take a taxi home than attempt to walk or take the tube.”

“I’ll make sure there’s a taxi available,” Melbourne promised.

“Perfect. Remember, Miss Hanover, now is the time to start taking folic acid, no heavy lifting, no alcohol or cigarettes, cut down on caffeine, and I’d also suggest you take a couple of days off work until you have your strength back. I wasn’t happy to see you walking around the hospital like that just now.”

Victoria said nothing but Melbourne nodded. “Thank you, Doctor, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“And you know what foods to be careful around or avoid?” Doctor Thompson asked.

“Yes,” Melbourne said. It was the third time he had heard this advice.

The rest of the evening passed in quiet conversation, both Melbourne and Victoria straining and reaching for conversation topics beyond that of the pregnancy. Mostly, they sat in stunned and slightly uncomfortable silence. He was glad at 7pm when he thought it was late enough for him to go home – he kissed her goodbye and told her he loved her, promising to be back first thing in the morning. She softly told him she loved him too and turned over so she had his back to him.

Taxis lined the outside of the hospital but Melbourne’s feet told him to walk. The long walk would give him a chance to clear his mind of the fog that had accumulated in his skull over the last few hours. He had to pinch the back of his hand four times as he travelled to bring himself back to reality: once when his eyes drifted out of focus, then again when he couldn’t feel his own limbs, when he almost accidentally ran out in front of car because he couldn’t hear it, and finally when he heard Caroline sobbing about their lost children in his head.

It was past eight when Melbourne got home but the sky seemed to think it was still late afternoon.

A light above the shop was on – Emily was still in. When Melbourne ascended the stairs to his and Victoria’s flat, he found her on the sofa, cuddling Dash, in a slightly tidier apartment than when he had left.

“So?” Emily asked eagerly. “How did it go?”

Melbourne slipped his hand into his pocket and shrugged. “Fine.”

“Just fine?” Emily said doubtfully, raising an eyebrow.

She didn’t get a response. Instead, Melbourne went straight to the kitchen to pull the scan photo from his pocket out into the open. He could feel Emily’s presence a few steps behind him, hovering over his shoulder like an inconvenient angel, trying to get a closer look without breaking into his personal space.

Melbourne slapped the photo against his hand for a minute and chewed the inside of his cheek. His gaze occasionally wandered to the bin in the corner. Then, he stopped and held the photo firmly between his fingers. He raised his arms to take the fridge magnet with a white polka-dot design from the refrigerator door. He quickly pinned the scan photo between the fridge and magnet, the ghost of a smile on his lips.


	7. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria and Melbourne have a chat about the future but can they agree on the best course of action?

_CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES_  
_SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED._  
_M & V_

Victoria walked with her head held high, scrutinising the scrawled notes that had been left in both shop doors. As she put her key into the lock and opened the entrance to the left of the building, she let a hand slip inside to pull the note away before quickly making her way across the floor to pull down the other on the right-side door too. Melbourne followed her with the overnight bag and a wrinkled paper bag of folic acid tablets, vitamin D tablets, and a few green, leafy vegetables, fruit, and lean meat. He sighed as he watched her throw the notes in the bin and turn the _CLOSED_ sign in the doors to _OPEN_.

“No, we’re not opening today,” Melbourne told her firmly. He dropped the overnight bag on the floor and put the paper one on a nearby table. He turned the signs back over and locked the doors. “You’re going upstairs to rest, take your tablets, and have a good breakfast. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“I’m pregnant, not dying,” she snapped. “I’m perfectly capable of managing my own business. We can’t close up every time things get a little challenging – it’s not a good business model.”

Melbourne opened a few windows around the shop as he saw Victoria’s face grow pink. He stopped to roll up his sleeves to his elbows, considering his options on how to handle his hormonal, stubborn girlfriend.

“Alright,” he said finally. He leaned against the café counter. “We’ll open up, but we’ll appoint Mrs Jenkins as pseudo-manager for the time being. Skerret will work as per-usual, we’ll join in as-and-when we’re able to,” he said carefully. “We can come in to check on everyone, greet customers, the occasional tidy up, all of that, and ask Emily to come in and be a server too. That way we’ll have plenty of time to stay upstairs and talk and you’ll still be working without running yourself into the ground as per Doctor Thompson’s instructions.”

She had her arms folded across her chest and had her nose scrunched up as she contemplated the proposal.

“Compromise with me,” Melbourne implored her.

“Fine,” she said reluctantly. “Fine. I don’t want you treating me any differently, okay?”

“I won’t,” he promised, holding his hands up. “Go and have breakfast and I’ll ask everyone to come back in.”

Victoria picked up the two bags to take upstairs, shooting M daggers before he could even move an inch to help. He took a step back and let her ascend the stairs alone.  
  
He climbed the other set of stairs to his old apartment, bouncing on each step on the balls of his feet and crashing into the torso of another man. This other man had bare feet, showing off the wiry, dark hairs growing from his toes, his white shirt was creased and hadn’t been buttoned up correctly, a jacket hung over his arm with his polished shoes in his other hand. Melbourne raised his head to meet the startled eyes of the anteater. Slowly, he turned from startled to amused.

“Good morning,” Palmerston said in a voice that was scratchy from the late morning.

“Yes…morning,” Melbourne answered, barely blinking as they passed each other on the stairs. He watched Palmerston put on his shoes and jacket when he reached the ground floor then unlock the florist door to walk away into the day.

Melbourne knocked on the door with his knuckles. The noise elicited a giggle from Emily on the other side. Her voice was muffled as she came to answer. “Back so soon, Big Boy? You are naughty.” Her cheeks flushed as she opened the door and she found herself unable to look her brother in the eye. She pulled her silk dressing down tighter around herself, crossing her arms over her chest. She knew in time that this would be a funny story to tell at parties. “I thought you were at the hospital…”

“I’m going to bleach my brain,” Melbourne told her. “And pretend my adorable little sister doesn’t talk or behave like that.”

“I have children, of course I behave like that.” Emily shut the door after he barged past her and into the living room, rolling her eyes. “But why don’t you come in?” she sighed good-naturedly. “What do I owe the pleasure?”

“How did you even manage to sneak him in? I was here all night.” Melbourne leaned against the wall, smiling despite himself.

“A woman has her secrets and ways,” she said, scratching behind her ear.

“What the hell are you doing, Emily?” he asked quietly with a hopeless shrug. “You were so angry and upset when you found out that Caroline was having an affair behind my back. Why are you doing the same to Peter?”

Emily frowned and bowed her head to look at the floorboards. “What do you want, William? If I wanted to hear a lecture I would’ve gone to university.”

He sighed and pulled himself away from the wall. “Victoria is refusing to keep the shop closed for another day. We’d like you to come and help out.”

“I’ll get dressed and I’ll be right there,” she promised, finally looking up. She furrowed her brow when she realised that William didn’t seem angry or upset with her. Instead he squeezed her shoulder and told her he loved her as he made his way back to his own apartment.

* * *

 Victoria pushed her diamond studs into the holes in her earlobes, making sure the backs were securely wedged in place. She smiled at Melbourne in the mirror as he sipped on his instant black coffee, ignoring the crease in his forehead that said ‘we need to talk’ and his restless tapping on the side of his mug when he wasn’t drinking. He didn’t even protest as he watched her tie her apron around her waist.

“Mrs Jenkins is taking to the pseudo-manager role like a duck to water, don’t you find?” Victoria said with a smile. Her face seemed much brighter after taking a shower, her tablets, and eating a nutritious breakfast.

“Perhaps if we have this baby then she can take on more roles in the shop?” Melbourne suggested. “We could hire additional staff so we have more time to look after the baby.”  
  
Victoria rolled her eyes and went searching for some hairbands. “And where do you expect us to find the money to pay for more staff and buy everything we need to look after a baby?”

“What about the money you got from your Uncle? Surely we could use that to help us,” he said, handing her the hairband he found under a sofa cushion.

“Absolutely not!” she stood in front of the mirror to braid her hair, the bands firmly sat around her wrists. “It’s going to take forever to pay that back as it is. Spending our savings on a baby means we’ll never get to pay it back because we’ll be too busy spending our money on a child until it’s old enough, and can afford to move out.”

“Your Uncle is a Prince,” Melbourne pointed out. “Is he really going to miss that much money? He gave that money to us as a gift to help us start the business.”

“It’s the principal, M! Besides, I don’t want more staff to lighten our workload. I like working and I want to continue to do so full time - I can’t do that with a baby,” she turned away from the mirror, talking with her hands. She starts counting on her fingers. “I don’t want to sit around getting bigger and less able to do things on my own, I don’t want people coming to help me because I’m pregnant, I don’t want people thinking I’m stupid because I’m a young mother, babies are pretty ugly anyway – I’m sorry but it’s true, and I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of responsibility anyway.”

Melbourne shrugged with a small smile. “I don’t think anyone will treat you negatively, not anyone that matters at least, you’ll always be beautiful no matter how big you get, you’re more capable than most people I know my age and honestly, people are never ready for that kind of responsibility.” He took her hand as she paced by him, pulling her on to his lap to wrap his arms around her. “When Caroline said she was pregnant for the first time I was definitely excited…but I wasn’t ready. Emily certainly wasn’t ready either. You can’t ever prepare for the reality.” He dropped a kiss to her shoulder.

“But I’m not even excited,” Victoria admitted. “I’m terrified and panicked and extremely unsure. Answer me this honestly,” she turned in his lap to look at him properly. “Are you completely and unequivocally sure that you want to have this baby? That you want to be a father again? Could you say yes without any worry or concern?”

He took a deep breath and looked down at his feet. “I’d be lying if I said if I didn’t have my reservations and worries about it. I’ve been through too much not to have those worries.”

“What are you worried about? We should consider all of our worries before we make any decisions,” she told him, raising her eyebrows. “Right? That’s what you told me in the taxi this morning.”

A bead of sweat ran down his spine, his forehead felt clammy. “Naturally I’m worried that the baby will be unwell like George…that I might have to bury a third child some day…” Victoria’s eyes softened as Melbourne sighed. “I’m worried you might miscarry like Caroline, that you might get unwell too and I’ll have to bury another wife- “

There was a pause. They could practically hear the proverbial crickets chirping between them.

Victoria jumped away from him, her ears twitching. “I’m sorry, what was that? Is this your way of asking me to marry you?”

He stood up too, mentally kicking himself and holding up his hands in surrender.

Ah yes, that’s just what the young, emotional girlfriend who’s not ready for such a huge responsibility as being a mother needs: being called his wife on top of everything else.  
  
“No! You know what I mean! Look, I’m worried it’s all going to happen again, okay? I’m worried things will all go spectacularly wrong again and my life is going to be one big de-ja-vu fever-dream, but I’m also prepared to take that risk at the opportunity of happiness and a family with the woman I love.” He smiled helplessly at her, keeping his hands visible, proving he had nothing to hide, no ulterior motives. It was just a slip of the tongue.

She started pacing again, chewing at her lip with her arms crossed over torso as though she were trying to comfort herself. “And what if I’m not prepared to take the risks? What if I see all the reasons why we shouldn’t have this baby and decide that I don’t want it? That I decide I don’t want to be a mother.”

“Then we don’t have the baby,” Melbourne told her simply. “Maybe one day we’ll change our minds. Maybe we won’t. Either way I can’t wait to find out what a future with you holds.”

Victoria nodded, her arms dropping back down to her sides. “So, it’s settled then?”

“I’m not going to make you go through with anything you don’t want to,” he agreed. “Plus, I have my own insecurities too. We both need to be sure we want to be parents and currently, we’re not. Let’s not make any mistakes here – you can get pregnant again one day if you want to. You can’t undo having a baby if you decide it’s not for you.”

The relief burst from her like a broken dam, flooding every cell and tiny detail within her. She hugged him. Her arms snaked around him and she squeezed until her arms shook with the tension that had built up there, with her face pressed against his chest. For once he didn’t smell like his aftershave, but rather of worry and bitter coffee. “Thank you,” she breathed, letting her eyes fall closed.

Melbourne had his nose pressed against the top of her head and his arms wrapped protectively around her, his spine tall and stiff. “It’s okay. It’s not the right time.”

“I love you,” she muttered before pulling herself away from him to smooth out her shirt and skirt. “I’ll make an appointment with a clinic later.”

“Okay,” he said, a small, false smile on his mouth. “I love you too.” He watched her float down the staircase to the shop floor and heard her make a joke with Emily, their laughter spreading across the building and soaking into the wood and the walls.

A ringing sounded in Melbourne’s ears as he turned to the kitchen to pour himself another coffee from the lukewarm pot. A grey and black spectre kept pressing into his peripheral vision from the fridge, the more he tried to look away from it the more it stuck to his eye. The more he turned his back the more the image fought for attention.

“Look at me!” it screamed.

Melbourne lifted his heavy head and pulled the scan photo from the fridge, holding it upside down so he could only see the glossy white back of the photopaper. He took two steps towards the kitchen bin and hovered over it, his fingers clasped to the image. _Let go_ , he told himself. _You just need to let go_. His hand was clamped and it wouldn’t move. He groaned at himself and put it back on the fridge with the same polka dot magnet, only this time, the monochrome image of the baby was facing the fridge and not the world. Now it seemed like another scrap piece of paper that could easily be used to hold their next shopping list.

“M, darling,” Victoria called up the stairs. “There’s a Mrs Liddell here who would like to speak with us!”

Melbourne knocked back his coffee and took a final look at the paper on the fridge before making his way back downstairs, practicing his customer service smile as he went. Mrs Liddell was behind the counter with Victoria, holding a thick stack of pink leaflets.

“How lovely to meet you,” M told her, taking her hand to shake when she offered it, shifting the leaflets in her arms. “What can we do for you?”

“I heard about a wonderful event you did for Mrs Connor’s birthday,” Mrs Liddell explained. Her hair was dark and cropped short and she had patchy eyebrows behind her glasses, but they were hardly noticeable when she smiled. Even though this was a stranger, her natural joy infected Melbourne too. “I was wondering if you would be so kind as to collaborate with me on raising money for breast cancer research? I was thinking something like a brunch with a raffle, tea and cake and flowers…then any money made from the raffle or from the entrance fee could be sent to the charity?” She pulled two of the pink leaflets from the pile. “That gives you some more information on the charity I’m working with and I’ve written my phone number on the back if you want to give me a call.”

Victoria nodded, looking over the leaflet with a smile and gently nudged Melbourne’s foot. “Yes,” he said, smiling at Mrs Liddell. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. Victoria and I will discuss some fine details and we’ll let you know what we can do for you in the coming days.”

“Thank you so much,” Mrs Liddell said excitably, saying her goodbyes and grabbing her takeaway coffee mug from the counter. “I can’t wait to hear from you.”

Melbourne raised his eyebrows with a smile, looking down at the leaflet. “There private functions are going to be a good idea, aren’t they?” He said after Mrs Liddell had disappeared.

“I told you they would be,” Victoria beamed, jumping up on her toes to kiss M’s cheek. She slipped the leaflet out of his hands so she could put them up in the windows of the two main entrances.

* * *

A rhythmic clash of coins came from the tills as Melbourne counted the takings with Mrs Jenkins, Skerret’s black Mary-Jane shoes squeaked on the floor whenever she stepped in an area that she had already mopped, and Emily was washing the tables. Victoria made a quiet retreat upstairs, staring down at the phone number she had prepared and ready to go on her phone keypad. The clinic information open on her internet browser – clean, bright colours that implied a clean, bright future for the person who didn’t want to be pregnant.

She sat back on the sofa, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet underneath herself. Dash jumped up beside her, resting his head on her lap and making a tired noise. Victoria scratched behind his ear until he fell asleep. The number was still staring up at her. All she needed to do was press the call button and all of this would be over in a couple of sessions. Nothing would have to change, no sleepless nights, no sore nipples, there would be no tiny feet running around, no childish happy giggling, no all-day cuddles…Just press the button. Her finger hovered over the green image on her screen. No dealing with dirty nappies but no dealing with the joy of the baby’s first word. Her brain told her to press it but her fingers didn’t move. When they finally twitched, and launched forward on the screen, they pressed the red button and cancelled the call.

Victoria closed her eyes, letting out a deep, nervous breath and pulled Dash in for a hug.


	8. Mothers and Fathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria is still unsure, even more so now she has learned a secret, and Melbourne is as supportive as always.

She was sat eating ice cream in her mismatched underwear on the kitchen floor. Specifically, she was eating vanilla ice cream that had melted to a squidgy, creamy, velvety liquid around the edges, filled with cookie dough pieces with a teaspoon on the kitchen floor. And it was 3am.

Dash was pressed up against her thigh, his nose resting on her stomach. The cold floor on her bare skin helped snatch away the August air that was trying to bury itself in her epidermis, despite it being the middle of the night. Even their thinnest bed-sheet was too warm to sleep in. Victoria’s back was supported by the fridge, the backwards scan photo a foot above her head, going unnoticed.

Melbourne’s feet padded across the floor and paused before his body slumped next to hers, his hand armed with another spoon. Victoria nudged him as he dipped his spoon into the tub and laughed in disbelief when he put the ice cream in his mouth.

“Cheeky bastard,” she muttered before her smile faded away. He watched her mix the ice cream around the tub, her eyes downcast at the twirling, figure-of-eight motion of her hand and wrist. He didn’t need to ask her what was wrong, he didn’t need to press her about it because he knew the truth would come. And it did.

“I didn’t call the clinic,” she said plainly, keeping her eyes fixed on the ice cream.

“Oh.”

“I couldn’t do it and I don’t know why,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I want to be a mother though,” she added with a sigh.

“If you have the baby and being parents doesn’t suit us at the time, we could always put it up for adoption. Plenty of people want to be parents and can’t have children themselves,” Melbourne suggested, going in to take another spoonful of ice cream.

Victoria ate another spoonful too with a nod. “Can you manage on your own today? I need to take a walk and clear my head…maybe talk to someone.”

“Talk to who?” Melbourne asked gently. When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “I’ll ask Emily again. I think she quite likes working here, even if she doesn’t admit it.”

“I’ll be back to help,” she promised. “I can’t imagine I’ll be long.”

“Is this why you couldn’t sleep? Too busy thinking about your inability to call the clinic?”

Victoria snorted and finally lifted her head. “No, I was just desperate for ice cream. I only got up to go to the loo but I physically couldn’t go back to bed without eating ice cream first.” She was smiling helplessly and rolled her eyes at herself.

M dipped back into the ice cream, smiling too. “They say that if you crave sweet things when you’re pregnant then it’s a sign you’re having a girl.”

“Do you believe that?” she asked, surprised.

He shrugged and kissed Victoria’s forehead near her stitches. “I don’t know what I believe regarding pregnancy and kids. My thoughts are all a bit skewed these days.”

Victoria pretended to gasp, placing down her ice cream to put her hand to her chest. Dash sniffed the tub and went back to sleep. “The great William Lamb-Melbourne unsure of what he believes?! Scandal!”

A deep laugh escaped Melbourne’s throat – he screwed up his face in faux upset and tapped the back of his spoon in the discarded ice cream then reached out to dab it on Victoria’s nose. She paused with her mouth hung open and her eyes more whites than iris. A smile spread slowly across her mouth and her index finger found itself in the ice cream tub, ready to attack. She smudged her finger on M’s nose in return. Dash didn’t seem too impressed with his owners’ play fighting and decided to go and sleep on their bed.

* * *

The clean grey steps seemed more like a hill to Hell than a staircase. The black door nestled against a white wall amongst the pastel colours of Notting Hill was a dark and ominous presence – even the pointed black fence told her to stay away. But Victoria persisted up the steps to bang the brass knocker against the wood door. She swallowed her nerves.

She was only stood on the doorstep for a moment. The greying ringlets of her mother’s hair looked like silver against the deep plum of her dress.

“’Drina,” Mama said, blinking fast. “I was not expecting to see you.”

Victoria kept her face blank. “Is _he_ here?” she asked bluntly.

“If you mean John, then no,” she said, already exasperated. “What can I do for you?” She caught sight of the stitches in Victoria’s head and gasped. “What happened?”

“I need to talk to you,” Victoria told her, barging into the house to find comfort in the familiar living room. The urge to pour herself a drink from the pot of tea that was sitting on the coffee table was strong, but she resisted. “There is something I have to tell you.”

Mama perched herself on the sofa and watched her daughter pace. “What on earth is the matter?”

She let out a breath and shut her eyes, turning to face her mother. “I’m pregnant.”

“What?” Mama cried, standing back up again. “Is it Mr Melbourne’s?”

Victoria’s eyes snapped open. “Of course it is! It would be no one else’s child!”

“I’m so happy for you, ‘Drina.” Mama told her with a smile, hesitantly bringing her daughter in for a hug. After a second, Victoria hugged back, her body shaking.

“I would have preferred the father to be someone more suitable, but still, a grandchild is a grandchild," Mama said. "What’s wrong?” she asked when Victoria pulled away to wipe at her wet eyes. “Did Mr Melbourne do that to you?” Mama asked steely, nodding towards the stitches. “Is that why you’re upset?”

“What? No! How could you think such a thing?” Victoria took a step back from her and touched her forehead. “I fainted at the park and hit my head, that’s all, but how dare you say that M isn’t suitable! I’ve never met a man more suitable than him.”

“Is the baby alright?” Mama asked, ignoring Victoria’s comments about Melbourne.

“Yes, Mama.”

“Then why are you crying?”

Victoria sniffed and launched herself at her mother once again, bursting into tears. “I’m scared, Mama.”

“Of course you are, ‘Drina. Becoming a mother is a big life change. I’d be more concerned if you weren’t scared in some way.”

“I don’t know what to do…M seems happy to let me do what I want about this, and I tried to phone a clinic but I couldn’t do it. I don’t really want to be a mother either and I just don’t know what to do,” Victoria rambled into her mother’s shoulder. “I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. No option seems like the right one.”

Mama pulled away again and instructed Victoria to sit down and relax herself whilst she got her some water. Victoria settled back in the fluffy, plump sofa and cuddled one of the velvet cushions to her, pressing her face against the soft material, not caring that she was getting tears and mascara stains on it.

Her eyes darted around the living room, trying to take in anything and everything, something to stop the emotions from falling freely from her eyes. The antique clock that had been sat on the wall since she was a child was free from dust, the light brown stain from a thrown cup of tea on the ceiling was still there, the azure glass vase on the mantelpiece that arrived when Victoria was a teenager looked untouched.

A white fabric book by the teapot caught her eye. Written in gold script on the front and surrounded by ivory lace was the words “ _OUR WEDDING._ ”

Victoria smiled at it, then at Mama as she returned with the water. “Is this yours and Dad’s wedding photos?” she asked, sitting forward to take the album, eager to thumb through the happy memories.

Mama put the glass down hurriedly. “No, no, that’s-“

It was too late. Victoria was already flipping through the pages. There weren’t many people in the photographs but Mama was in white, something elegant and sleek that was cinched in at the waist. The dress was covered in beads in a delicate floral pattern with a lace trim on the hem, and sleeves that stopped at her elbows. Her hair was delicately pinned up at the back to create a gentle bouffant at the front that housed a small, diamond tiara. She was holding a bouquet of white and pink roses and smiling. The man next to her was wearing a grey suit and a white shirt, his tie was silver and he had a soft pink handkerchief poking out of the top of his jacket pocket. The warm pink did little to distract from his cold eyes.

They were standing together, laughing, kissing, looking up at the cascading confetti. Victoria recognised a few of the people in the background – they were Mama’s friends from whatever party or event they had been to together. Occasionally they met for coffee or for a shopping trip. In these photos, they were wearing the latest occasion-wear from France and Germany. The next photo was of Mama and Conroy standing before a priest and holding rings.

Victoria slowly raised her head, her eyes glassed over. “You married John Conroy without telling me?”

“Which means that, technically, the album is mine and your father’s wedding album, yes,” Mama defended. She subconsciously tried to hide the thin wedding band that had previously been overlooked on her left hand behind her.

“No,” Victoria barked. “No, this is not yours and my father’s wedding album!” She stood and threw the album back down on to the table, making the china rattle. “That is the wedding album of two strangers. How long ago?”

“Almost eight months ago.”

“Do my uncles know?”

“No.”

“Does Flora know?”

“Did you see her in those photographs? No. I knew she would tell you.”

“Do Feodora and Friedrich know?”

“No. They won’t speak to me so I didn’t think there was any point in telling them, just as I thought it was the same with you.”

Victoria snarled and furiously scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands, shaking her head. “No wonder I’m scared of being a mother when the only experience of motherhood I’ve ever had was your poisonous and twisted version of it! Do you enjoy hiding things from me? I feel that is all you ever do, Mama!”

“You’re being dramatic, ‘Drina,” Mama told her firmly with a nonchalant wave of her bejewelled hand. “It is your hormones. Come now, sit down and stop making such a fuss, it’s not good for the baby.” She tried to coax Victoria back to the sofa, putting an arm around her shoulders.

But Victoria had other ideas. Even with the tears dripping down her cheeks and her overwhelming urge to do nothing but sit and cry, she pushed her mother away. Mama wore her selfishness and cruelty like a cheap perfume and the odour made Victoria feel sick to her stomach.

“Never mind about the bloody baby!” she roared. “What about me for a change, Mama? Why can’t you think about how I feel for once in your life? You’ve put John Conroy before me all my life, and now you’re already thinking about my unborn child before you think about me and how I might feel about your marriage! You’ve put me down,” Victoria said, her breathing becoming easier and her tears drying up. “You never had any faith in my business and even now you can barely bring yourself to say a genuine positive thing about me or William. I’m tired of you, Mama. I came to confide in you and you gave no advice – I discover instead you married the snake that has wanted to do nothing other than ruin my life, behind my back!”

“It is none of your business who I marry! We thought it was for the best that you didn’t know because we knew you would behave so unreasonably as this,” Mama explained. “I had hoped that part of you would be pleased that your real father and I were finally married and that we could all act as a family, but clearly I was wrong. We were right not to tell you.”

Victoria’s eyes went dark, her mouth turned in a scowl. “He is not my father. I’ve told you before that my father is dead, and now I consider my mother to be so too.” Her voice was cold and stern and final. “I cannot begin to live my life happily with M and our possible baby when I am living beneath the shadow of you and John Conroy.”

Her feet moved her tired body towards the front door, she didn’t look back as she slammed it shut. She imagined her mother watching her from the window, wishing she had gone about the issue in a different way. But she knew it was far more likely that her mother would have gone back to her tea, glad that her troublesome daughter was finally gone. Somehow, despite this, Victoria felt lighter on her feet, her chin was lifted as she walked, and the prospect of never seeing Notting Hill again made her smile.

A customer greeted Victoria as he left the shop, coffee and a cupcake in hand. The tables were full of happy people who were enjoying the sunshine as it streamed in through the large windows and hit their cheeks. Emily was wrapping a bouquet in purple cellophane as Melbourne sat behind the counter on the phone, the finances notebook in his lap, ordering from one of his suppliers. He smiled as he saw Victoria but then frowned as he noticed the anger that hadn’t quite finished melting away from her features. He held up a finger to say that he would only be a minute.

“Thank you, Mrs Cowper,” the man at the counter said as he paid for his flowers.

“Actually,” Emily said, closing the till with a clatter and handing the man his receipt. “It’s Ms Lamb-Melbourne once again.”

The man titled his head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be,” Emily grinned. She said goodbye as the man turned to leave and moved her attention to Victoria as she began picking out fresh flowers for another order. She watched Victoria raise her eyebrows and lean against the counter. “Did William tell you?” Emily wondered with a beam.

“Tell me what?” Victoria asked.

“I hired a divorce lawyer yesterday afternoon,” she explained. “And Henry and I are…” she paused, searching her mind for the right words, looking up to the ceiling. “Progressing in our relationship.”

M put down the phone and sighed, standing up with the notebook close to his chest. “That’s one way of putting it. Are you quite alright, Victoria?”

“Can we speak upstairs?” she asked him.

Emily went back to work, whistling to herself and pretending that she wasn’t straining her ears beyond the noise of the shop to hear their hushed voices. She twiddled with some heart-shaped wire, measuring it against some foam to make a frame for a wreath and hummed to herself as Victoria and Melbourne crossed the floor with anxious smiles at customers.

The silence sealed the couple in their apartment with a click of the door. It rang in their ears for a millisecond before Victoria began to let her emotions pour out of her like the ferocious running of a waterfall. Her fingers trembled underneath the too-long sleeves of Melbourne’s cardigan, glad that the long material covered the growing tightness of the waistband of her skirt.

“I went to visit Mama,” she explained, her eyes rimmed with red. “She married John Conroy behind everyone’s back. Not even Uncle Leopold or Uncle Ernest were in the wedding photos! How could she do such a thing?”

Melbourne leaned against the arm of the sofa, nodding. “Are you upset that it was done in secret? Would you have preferred her to tell you that her intention was to marry him?”

“I wouldn’t have been happy about it,” Victoria admitted, pacing up and down the living room with her hands held tightly in front of her so she could rub her knuckles. “But I think I would have appreciated her honesty. At least I knew then that she cared enough about me or my brother or sister, my uncles or my cousins to let us all know. My mother cares about herself and nobody else – she will always put herself before her children and the rest of her family.”

“Is that why you’re upset? You don’t think she cares about you?” Melbourne asked her gently, following her around the room with his warm eyes.

“Mama has always been selfish and cruel, conniving and mistrustful, a liar and borderline emotionally manipulative. She is supposed to be my role model and what kind of example has she set to me over the past twenty-five years? Even if I wanted this baby I’m not sure I could be a good mother when I have the ghost of her behaviour hanging over me.” Victoria paused her speech to scratch her forehead, the stitches and healing process beginning to irritate her healthy, undamaged skin. “How can I be a good mother when I didn’t really have one myself? I refuse to be like my mother.”

Melbourne balanced himself on the armrest, giving Victoria a gentle smile. “Isn’t the fact you recognise what behaviours in your mother you don’t want proof that you’re actively trying not to be like her already?”

“In theory, yes,” Victoria concedes. “But what about in five, ten, fifteen years when I’m tired, I’m juggling motherhood to a toddler or a teenager with business, when I’m getting older and more bitter and twisted because I’m still angry at my mother? Then what if our child starts to resent me like I do my mother and the entire cycle starts again?”

“You’re forgetting something,” Melbourne said with an amused smile.

“And what’s that?”

He pulled her in for a hug, his arms strong and steady around her nervous frame. “Me,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll be by your side helping you every step of the way in parenthood and business, through every challenge and success. I’ll be here with you forever, if you’ll let me be.”

She nodded, laughing against him and squeezing his waist. “Naturally, I’ll let you. I love you, M, more than I could ever put into words.”

“I’m still not going to push you to do anything that you don’t want to,” he reminded her with a gentle voice. “All I want is for you to be happy whether that’s with, or without, a baby.”

“I think I still need to think,” she said, pulling away from M to wipe at her eyes and walk to the kitchen. She heard Melbourne follow her as she rattled around a drawer for a spoon. There was a half-eaten tub of cookie dough ice cream still in the freezer that she plucked from the drawer. “But before I think, I eat.”

The corners of Melbourne’s mouth turned up. He gently held the sides of her face in his hands, scanning it as though he were trying to memorise the tiny details: the dazzling blue of her almond eyes, the rounded tip of her nose, the thickness of her eyebrows, the way the bow of her lip was slightly fuller on the left. Her chin was gently pointed which elongated her round face, the tips of her eyelashes brushed the underside of her brows. A warm glow spread over her cheeks as he smiled down at her – he kissed her softly as though her lips might shatter beneath his own. His heart fluttered in his chest like paper in the wind – billowing against his ribs as he felt the soft fleshy skin of Victoria’s cheeks under his fingertips and her peach lip balm on his mouth.

“You’re so beautiful,” he told her earnestly before kissing her forehead and stepping away. “Mrs Liddell needs to move her event to next month. There’s been an issue at home apparently.”

Victoria smiled too as she scraped her spoon across the ice cream in the tub. “I do hope she’s okay.”

“I’m sure that she is,” he assured her. “Come down to the shop when you’re ready. I want to put Emily on barista duties so you can help me with that wedding order – you’re a more accomplished florist than she is.”

Victoria grinned, swallowing a mouthful of ice cream. “Only because I was trained by the very best.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Melbourne said carefully, beaming from her compliment. “Now that Emily has officially hired a divorce lawyer, I think we should give her a job full-time until she can get on her feet properly in London. We could do with the help and she could probably do with the money.”

“Okay,” she said after a pause. “I trust your judgement and if you think it’s a good idea, then I do too.”

* * *

The shop had hushed by the time the ice cream tub was empty. Emily had already migrated to the coffee station on her brother’s instruction, leaving the heart shaped wreath on the counter. The sickly-sweet smell of jasmine flowers mixed with the dark, bitter scent of Melbourne’s espresso made Victoria’s nose twitch. Beside the jasmine was deep pink, almost purple anemones, large decorative leaves, and yellow angel tulips that had been flown in from Amsterdam yesterday.

“Of course they want tulips in August,” Melbourne had muttered to himself after a meeting with the picky bride and groom. “Why wouldn’t they want an April flower in the middle of August?”

But somehow, he had managed to find the right tulips and have them shipped over in time. Melbourne always had a great relationship with his suppliers, more so now that business had picked up and he was in constant contact with suppliers abroad. He had even sent out some orders himself from his allotment.

Melbourne kissed her cheek as Victoria sat behind the counter, picking up a tulip to examine the sunshine petals. He brought over a bucket of water filled with pale snapdragons and sighed, his hands on his hips. “Are you going to be okay with the smell of roses now? I still need to bring the wedding ones in from the back.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Victoria nodded. “If not, I’ll just do something else until you’re done.”

“Good idea,” he said with a satisfied smile. “The anemones and jasmine can be put aside for now. Emily will finish that order later.”

The roses were a gentle lime colour that could almost violently clash against the tulips if the green were any more prominent. The roses and tulips were to be softened in the arrangement with the addition of the snapdragons and a few large daisies.

They sat quietly together to arrange the four flowers and the leaves into a few bouquets of varying sizes, trimming the stems, and pruning the leaves. When their hands brushed as they arranged their flowers, they laughed quietly and looked bashfully at one another as though it were the first time they had touched. Noise fell away as they became enraptured in their floral afternoon, seeing only the bouquet designs and each other – the customers almost vanished in the blink of an eye. The hiss of the espresso machine became white noise.

Emily took it upon herself to manage Mrs Jenkins and Skerret for the afternoon, occasionally looking towards her brother and Victoria with a smile. Skerret looked too, grinning at Emily as though to say, ‘those two are meant for each other.’ Mrs Jenkins watched the four others from the corners of her eyes, wiping down tables and counters repeatedly to look busy as she tried to eavesdrop.

“We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?” Victoria asked Melbourne quietly, staring up at him with tulips in hand, turning the stems between her fingers. “We’ll figure out what to do?”

“Of course,” Melbourne said, smiling gently. “You won’t be anything like your mother, whatever we decide to do. I’ll always be here for you,” he paused to step closer and press a gentle hand over her stomach. “Or for both of you, if that’s what you decide you want.”

Victoria looked down at his hand with a soft smile, confident that together they could do anything, cope with any decision, cope with any obstacle. She wasn’t sure what she would do, her confidence didn’t stretch that far, but she knew that her M would stand by her and comfort her. He would always look after her and put her first. Her mother might not put her first, John Conroy might not put her first, her brother and sister might be too far away to put her first, but Melbourne would put her happiness before his own. She could put herself first too when she needed to.

Mrs Jenkins’ ears twitched and she turned her head to see Mr Melbourne’s hand against Victoria. She raised her eyebrows with a grin before turning away to wash the café mugs.  
  
In the quiet corner of their little shop, Melbourne moved his hand away to take a few daisies, slotting them delicately in Victoria’s hair.

“Do you know why daisies are used in wedding bouquets?” he asked her. She shook her head as she trimmed the stem of a snapdragon. “They mean true love, innocence, and fertility, and sometimes, new beginnings,” he explained.

Victoria laughed. “How fitting.”

“Exactly,” Melbourne grinned, placing another daisy in Victoria’s hair. “Whatever you decide will mark the start of a new beginning for us in some way. I’m excited to see where we go from that beginning, whatever it is.” He offered her a daisy, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. “To new beginnings?”

A helpless smile spread across her face as she took the daisy. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his lips tenderly. “To new beginnings.”


	9. The Bride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria makes a new friend and is still thinking about her future with Melbourne.

The muffled sound of yelling made the shop floor grow quiet in one swift motion – silence rippled over the building like the undulations of a restless sea. Customers sucked their iced tea through straws leisurely, not letting the liquid gurgle too loudly in the new recyclable takeaway cups. Dash whimpered at the shrieking coming from outside but he soon calmed again once the nearest customer reached down to stroke his head, hushing him in a quiet, comforting tone. Mrs Jenkins poured coffee as though she were in slow-motion, and Skerret carried a tray of used cups and plates that were spread wide as possible across it so that they wouldn’t clack together as she walked to the sink.

Outside, cars slowed as they drove past the scene, those caught in traffic too far back to see what was happening beeped their horns. People walking by stopped dead on the corner of the street and pulled out their phones, taking photos and videoing the couple with disbelieving, nervous laughter.

Each bouquet had been stacked carefully and delicately into boxes ready for delivery to the church. Melbourne held a box in his hands, unable to put it down as he stared out the window – the scent of roses and the gentle sweetness of the snapdragons tickled at his nose but he could barely sense it. Victoria had the keys to the car in her hand, keeping herself like a statue so the keys and rings didn’t clatter together like wind-chimes in a breeze.

One thing after the other had been going wrong all morning. Their alarm clock hadn’t rung so they were still in bed when Mrs Jenkins and Skerret had arrived for their shift, banging on the doors in the hopes that it would wake Melbourne and Victoria from their deep sleep. Emily had rushed off home in the early hours of the morning because her youngest son, Charlie, was in hospital with tonsillitis, aphids had destroyed their Peace roses, and the car wouldn’t start which made them late with their delivery to the wedding. Luckily, this disaster was easily rectified since there was only a short walk to the church. Melbourne let Victoria unload the smaller, lighter boxes from the car to put all their contents into a bigger box, which he was still carrying now as they watched the scene unfolding in front of them. They soon realised they wouldn't need to bother travelling to the church at all.

The sun had ducked behind a collection of clouds that were coming in from the west. They were dark grey and foreboding, much like the atmosphere on the bride’s face. The wind fluttered around her wedding dress and veil as she stood a few feet away from the groom in his navy suit. A white and yellow handkerchief was poking out of his jacket pocket. The distraught bride pointed a perfectly manicured nail at him as she screamed, becoming redder and redder in the face.

“Why don’t you go and marry Candice instead?” the Bride suggested, spitting her anger through her teeth. “It looks like the two of you are rather close already!”

The groom was far quieter in his response. Everyone in the shop held their breath, just in case it might help them to hear. “Oh, babe, don’t be like that! You’re over-reacting – nothing happened!”

“Photographs don’t lie, Stuart!” the Bride pointed out. “So what did happen then? You accidentally fell and landed on her lips? You tripped over your shoelaces and she offered up her tits to cushion the blow? She’s got a magic vagina that enchanted your dick in to her like some kind of pornographic snake charmer?”

The women in the shop gasped and covered their mouths, the men winced in their chairs, some younger customers sniggered quietly to themselves and the parents of young children covered their fragile offspring’s ears. Melbourne looked down at the flowers, pretending to double-check the quality of the bouquets whilst Victoria’s eyes strained against their sockets, not wanting to miss a single thing.

“You’re making it sound worse than it is,” Stuart insisted. “You always do this! You’re crazy!”

An incredulous shriek left the Bride’s mouth. “You cheated on me and you think I’m the crazy one?! You didn’t even have the common decency or a high enough IQ to delete the photos off our fucking camera!”

“It’s not a big deal,” Stuart insisted. “You were looking at the photos wrong. I can’t cope with this, I’m out of here.”

“Good!” the Bride screamed. She lifted her hands to tear the engagement ring from her finger. The Bride pulled so violently that Victoria thought her finger would come off with it. “You can take this ring and you can shove it up your arse!” She threw it towards Stuart as he walked away. He turned his head to look at her with a disgusted grimace before walking faster and shaking his head, muttering to himself.

The ring rolled across the road, narrowly missing being hit by cars, and splashed into a drain.

As the Bride turned on her ivory heels towards the shop, the customers let their chatter come back in full force, Victoria put the keys on the counter next to the box of flowers that Melbourne was putting down too. The woman in the white A-line gown looked sheepish and empty as she stepped inside the warm doors of Espressaroma. She looked around at the customers, half aware that seconds ago they had all been watching the breakdown of her relationship on her own wedding day. She kept her head high as she strode towards Melbourne and Victoria.

“I need to cancel my order,” she said, her voice raspy. “There’s no point in bringing them to the church…the wedding is off.” The weight of the situation crashed down on her in seconds. Tears brimmed in her eyes until they spilled over and down her face. The warm tears barely upset her waterproof mascara, but they left large streaks through the soft highlighter on her cheeks.

Victoria put an arm around the woman’s waist – slightly too short to be able to put an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll cancel it,” she said gently. “Don’t you worry. We’ll refund the full amount too. Come upstairs to calm down,” Victoria implored, slowly walking along the floorboards with the Bride. She stared at the floor so she could pay special attention to avoid stepping on the hem of the Bride’s wedding gown, but she thought the Bride wouldn’t really care if she did.

When Victoria shut the apartment door, the Bride collapsed on the sofa, letting the emotions come from her body freely, away from the prying eyes of customers and the unloving gaze of Stuart. “He didn’t even fight for me,” she realised. “He didn’t even seem upset. He didn’t fight for me…he just walked away.”

Victoria silently brought her some tissues, then a glass of water, then a cup of tea. She sat beside the Bride until she ran out of tears to cry. The Bride took a deep breath, her hands shaking as she balled up the damp tissue she clung to. She dropped it on the coffee table and reached out to absently turn Melbourne’s ornamental globe with glassy, out of focus eyes.

“Thank you for being so kind,” she told Victoria with a hesitant smile. “I really appreciate it.”

“It was the least I could do.”

The Bride scanned Victoria’s face with narrowed eyes. “I’m sorry…I don’t think we’ve met properly. I’ve only spoken to Mr Melbourne.”

Victoria smiled and held out her hand. “Sorry about that, I’ve been unwell recently. I’m Victoria Hanover. Co-owner and M’s partner. Girlfriend. Partner sounds too formal and girlfriend sounds too young, don’t you find?”

The Bride shook Victoria’s hand with a limp wrist and a cautious leer. “Harriet Nighti-“ she sighed and looked as though she might cry again. “Harriet Howard. God! I already changed my name to Nightingale before the wedding. I’m so stupid – now I have to spend more money to change it back.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” Victoria insisted with a hopeful smile. “Howard, I mean, not Nightingale. I love alliterative names. Harriet Howard suits you. Nightingale would make you sound too old-fashioned, I think.”

“Thanks,” Harriet laughed bitterly. She pulled the veil from her head – the comb had been keeping her hair in place, so now it fell easily in dark, bouncy curls down her shoulders and back. She ran the lace and tulle of the veil through her fingers with an agonised groan before bunching it all up and pushing it into Victoria’s hands. “Have it. I don’t need it anymore.”

Victoria frowned and tried to give it back, but Harriet pulled away from her. “No. I don’t want it. Please take it,” she begged. “Use it if you ever marry Mr Melbourne. I find that the title of wife is neither too formal or too young.”

The veil found its temporary home on the table beside the snot and tear filled tissue. “Thank you,” Victoria said to her, looking down on the discarded material. “Is there anyone we should call to let them know you’re here? I’m sure your friends are worried sick about you.”

“It’s okay,” Harriet insisted, getting up from the sofa. “I should go back to the church anyway – I have a lot to cancel, including the honeymoon for tonight. Thank you for being so lovely. Mr Melbourne is a lucky man.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Victoria laughed. “But thank you…” She paused and licked the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue, her mind racing faster than her mouth could speak. “Don’t cancel the honeymoon.”

“What?”

“Where were you going to go?”

“Barcelona.”

“Go on your own,” Victoria suggested eagerly as she reached for the apartment door. “It might do you good to have a holiday and some time alone to think. Get some sun, relax on the beach, drink too many cocktails! Celebrate being single again, you might enjoy it.”

Harriet laughed. “Well, I do have my suitcase packed already,” she said as she followed Victoria back down the stairs.

“M has your contact details so I’ll send you my phone number later, you know, if you ever want to talk. Come and visit whenever you like, too,” Victoria offered. “I’d love to hear all about your holiday if you decide to go.”

A genuine smile replaced the sorrowful one Harriet had arrived with as she waved goodbye to Melbourne. “I might just do that.”

* * *

 Mr Connor’s flash of white teeth protruded from behind the soft bouquet of apricot germinis, cream roses, white chrysanthemums and sand-coloured carnations. The arrangement had been further, and almost unnecessarily, filled with eucalyptus leaves and wrapped in yellow tissue paper that was decorated with cartoon ducks.

“I have flowers for the florists,” he said proudly. “Congratulations, both of you.”

Victoria and Melbourne looked at one another with cocked eyebrows. “Congratulations?” Victoria wondered. “Congratulations for what?”

“On the pregnancy, of course!” His smile began to droop. “The both of you will make fine parents.” He held out the bouquet and shook it lightly as though to emphasis his point.

“Thank you,” Victoria said hesitantly through clenched teeth, taking the bouquet. “I’ll put these in some water – they’re beautiful. Take a seat, Mr Connor, I’ll see to it that Mrs Jenkins will bring you your usual coffee.” She turned towards the florist stock room. “M, would you come and help me for a minute? I can’t reach the vases.”

In the stock room, Melbourne took a vase down from a shelf, Victoria huffing and looking at the bouquet with a wrinkled nose behind him. “Have you been telling people that I’m pregnant after I explicitly told you not to?!”

“No,” he insisted. “I thought you must have said something…” He began to fill the vase with cool water before taking the bouquet from Victoria’s ever-tightening hand.  
  
“Someone must know!” she cried as she watched Melbourne remove the yellow tissue paper. “Can you think of anyone that might?”

“Emily knows,” Melbourne said apologetically. “I didn’t tell her, by the way, before you assume.” He raised his eyebrows at her already gaping mouth and her accusing finger point. Victoria sheepishly lowered her hand.

“She guessed after you spent the night in hospital. She asked me very straight forwardly if you were pregnant,” he explained. “I didn’t want to lie to her.” He shrugged and dunked the flower stems into the vase of water. “She promised not to say anything though, and she isn’t even here right now to tell anyone.”

Victoria sighed and scratched at her chin. “I trust her not to have told anyone anyway. She’s chatty but she can keep a secret.”

“Do you think your mother might have said anything?”

She groaned and rubbed her forehead. “It’s entirely possible…God, I should never have told her! She’s never been able to keep secrets – especially my secrets!” Victoria’s eyebrows furrowed together as another thought crept across her mind. “No, she doesn’t come here. How could she tell Mr Connor if she doesn’t see him?”

“Do you think she would have gone out of her way to do this to you?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Victoria admitted, running her hands along the warmed storage boxes that were used to help the flowers inside to bloom. She peered in one of the boxes on the lowest shelf and carefully pulled it out. “These need to go into the cold room.”

Melbourne gazed in at the rose lilies that were clearly far too open, especially when the bright petals from the same lilies on the shop floor could be seen through the door. “Good spot,” he said with a smile. “I ordered far too many. I think I’m probably going to have to waste half of them.”

“You could give them away,” Victoria mused. “Like a random act of kindness. It would really brighten up people’s days.”

“You brighten up my day,” he told her quietly before kissing her ear. “Come on, we ought to get back.”

Victoria smiled, taking her new vase of flowers in her arms. “Don’t forget to put the lilies in the cold room.”

“One step ahead of you,” he said with a laugh, bending at the knees to haul the box safely in line with his belly button. Victoria laughed too and gently shook her head at his proper lifting technique, which seemed unnecessary when even she could easily move it.

The cold room was a tiny box room with two tall, transparent refrigerators with a few white, plastic vases that were filled with closed petal flowers laying delicately dormant. He rearranged the vases to fit in half of the lilies, leaving the other half to keep resting in their box. As he walked back through the stock room, shutting the cold room door tightly behind him, he grabbed another spare plastic vase, whistling to himself. If it hadn’t been for the noise then Melbourne might have missed the gathering on the other side of the florist’s counter.

“Congratulations!” a gaggle of regular customers shouted from their tables. Victoria had already been encircled by them and was grinning awkwardly at Melbourne, her eyes wide and screaming _‘get me out of here.’_ More gifts had been thrust into her hands and Mr Connor’s bouquet had been discarded on the café counter.

“Thank you,” Melbourne said hoarsely, blinking slowly as he tried to process the group. “It’s been a very...” he paused to find the right word. Happy seemed out of place considering Victoria’s original upset, exciting didn’t seem right either, but surprising and unprecedented had too many negative connotations. “It’s been a very overwhelming few weeks,” he decided.

“Very much so,” Victoria agreed, wriggling away from the customers with a gracious smile. “All this attention has made me feel rather exhausted, so I think I’m going to take a nap. Thank you for all your well-wishes.”

“I’ll bring your presents up in a minute,” Melbourne promised her, making a point of drawing her attention to the box and vase in his hands. “I need to sort the lily abundance.”

“I can help take the gifts,” Skerret offered from behind the counter as she cleaned the espresso machine. “Any job that doesn’t have machinery would be a blessing right now.”

The customers settled back in their chairs but Victoria could feel their eyes follow her from the café, past Skerret and Mrs Jenkins, and up the stairs. Mrs Jenkins watched the shop from over her shoulder and then looked to Skerret with a smile that was almost devious.

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” Skerret said under her breath as she crossed Mrs Jenkins to pick up the teddy bears, chocolate, baby clothes, and bath products that had been left for Victoria in a gift bag. “They clearly didn’t want to tell anyone.”

Mrs Jenkins shrugged. “She could probably have done with the support, and anyway, people were going to find out eventually. At least now we can ask her and Mr Melbourne about our hours and responsibilities if they need to take family leave. You know I would do well in a managerial job and so do they.”

* * *

September arrived under a blanket of dark, low-lying clouds. The leaves on the trees slowly faded from moss to tawny, and the people of London turned from summer dresses and shorts to cable-knit jumpers and jeans seemingly overnight. Those who had left for work in coats and thick cardigans in the early morning chill walked home with their knitwear over the crooks of their arms or tied around their waists. The smell of barbecued meats from people unable to let go of summer wafted from all directions, carried by the hazy early autumn winds.

The dark cloud that had plagued the mornings of the start of September had dissipated by the middle of the month, leaving behind a second summer as it faded north. The change of season inflicted personal change – like the slow growth of Victoria and Melbourne’s child and Harriet’s new holiday romance. She had texted a photo of herself and fellow holiday-maker, George Sutherland, to Victoria, their arms around one another in the hotel pool and another photo of them sharing a cocktail with two different straws. Victoria was surprised to discover Harriet and George were still together upon their return to London and was perhaps even more surprised that the two had gone to school together many years ago.

“Fate is playing a hand in this,” Harriet had said to Victoria over an iced coffee. Her skin a warm golden colour and speckled with freckles. “Thank you, V. If it hadn’t been for you urging me to go on my honeymoon then we wouldn’t have re-connected.”

“I aim to please,” Victoria answered, sipping on her lemonade. “You look like you had fun – I’m a little jealous actually. I can’t remember the last holiday I had.”

“You and William should have one before that little baby arrives!” Emily squealed as she walked by with a tray of empty glasses. She put it down and sat herself between Victoria and Harriet with a smile.

“Perhaps,” Victoria laughed. “Harriet, this is M’s sister, Emily. Emily, this is my friend Harriet.”

“I’ve seen you around,” Emily said enthusiastically, holding out her left hand for Harriet to shake. There was a proud, pale gap on her ring finger. “You were the bride who wanted tulips in August.”

Harriet blushed and bowed her head, trying not to laugh. “I like tulips! It was funny really…I was being picky about the flowers to hide the fact I hadn’t been picky with my choice of husband.”

“Husbands are overrated anyway,” Emily insisted. “Unless your husband is my brother, of course,” she added, grinning at Victoria. “In which case, husbands are completely wonderful.”

Victoria tucked her hair behind her ears and folded her arms over the table. “Haven’t you got some washing up to do?” she asked, nodding towards the tray with a smile.

“Spoil sport,” Emily teased, standing again with the tray. “It was lovely to meet you, Harriet.”

“And you, Emily!” Harriet answered. “She seems lovely,” she told Victoria after Emily had retreated to the café kitchen. “She’s eager for you and Melbourne to tie the knot then?”

“Said the woman who gifted me a veil and said I should have the title of wife!” Victoria teased, then became serious again. “She had been eager about it when we first met,” she admitted, taking another sip of her lemonade. “But even more so now I’m pregnant. Even Flora and Albert have asked me if it might happen soon…but we’ve only been dating for a year…which, I realise, is an entirely pointless argument considering we’re probably going to end up having this baby.” Victoria shook her head at herself.

“You’re still unsure,” Harriet said with an understanding nod. “But you and William seem like such a strong couple that I’m sure the two of you will have no problems raising a child together. It’s a tough decision to make and I’m sorry that I can’t be more helpful in it.”

“It’s alright,” Victoria told her with a smile. “I don’t expect you to tell me what the right thing to do is.” She raised her head as a tall man wearing full cricket whites with a roman nose entered the shop. He scanned the faces of all the girls he could see. “Oh, I do believe Mr Sutherland is looking for you,” she smirked.

Harriet turned her head towards the door, breaking out into a broad beam upon seeing him and got to her feet. Victoria had to feign a cough to stop Harriet and Sutherland from kissing one another and to entice a formal introduction. When Victoria snorted with laughter after being reminded that Mr Sutherland’s first name was George, she discovered herself explaining the situation.

“Recently I have found myself knowing an abundance of Georges,” she chuckled. “As such, I’m going to refer to you as Sutherland or simply S.”

“A fair compromise,” Sutherland agreed. “I’m about to play a match at my local cricket club, I would love to have you join us, Victoria.”

“Oh, please do!” Harriet nodded. “George really is the most wonderful batsman.”

“Perhaps some other time,” Victoria said apologetically. “I should really continue running my business. You are both still available to come to our charity brunch next week, aren’t you?”

Sutherland and Harriet grinned at one another. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Harriet assured her.

* * *

Every table had a vase of pink blooms adorning them like crowns. Catherine Woodbury daylilies, anemones, fuchsias, peonies, Angelique tulips, crabapple blossoms…all vases were different and thick with various arrangements. Mrs Liddell weaved happily between the tables, sniffing each flower with a grin. The smell of hot, baked pastry and cake floated into the shop from Victoria and Melbourne’s apartment.

Victoria sighed longingly at the two-tier dark chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting as she placed fondant roses across the top. Another deep inhale of the rich aromas made her stomach grumble.

“One more hour,” she mumbled, her eyes narrowed as she tried not to smudge the frosting or squash the fondant with her twitchy fingers. “Then you and I can eat as much cake as we like.” She grinned as the final blush flower decorated the cake and then pressed a hand to her stomach as it growled at her again. “Okay, okay! Calm down, Little One, you’ll get cake soon.”

She lifted the cake that was on its stand, carefully manoeuvring it down the stairs to the shop where she placed it cautiously on the café counter.

“It looks beautiful!” Mrs Liddell cried. “You’ve got such a beautiful eye for decoration – I almost don’t want to eat it.”

“I’m ready to demolish it,” Victoria admitted with a hungry smile. “I can’t stop thinking about cake, but I think that’s mostly because I’ve been around it all day. It’s either that or Baby already has a sweet-tooth and it doesn’t even have teeth yet.”

Melbourne smiled fondly, a warm, comforting feeling spreading over his chest. The first time she had called their child by a nickname, he thought he would cry from happiness. _Rosebud_ , she had said in a sleepy tone, her fingers trailing across her stomach. He copied her with gentle motions, glad that she had become less and less concerned with what to do about the pregnancy. She hadn’t given a definitive answer, but he thought the nicknames and smiles were promising.

“I can go to the supermarket and buy you anything and everything you want. You just say the word,” he offered.

“I can look after myself, M,” Victoria laughed, waving a hand. “Please don’t fuss.”

A partially chastised Melbourne raised his hands in defence, laughing, before taking a few steps back to occupy himself with work.

“My husband was just the same,” Mrs Liddell assured Victoria. “Always fussing as though I were the most fragile being in the world.”

“Oh, he’s not my husband,” Victoria corrected her, scratching the side of her neck. “We’re dating and having a baby… but we’re not married.”

“Perhaps one day?” Mrs Liddell murmured to her.

Victoria followed Mrs Liddell’s eyes to where Melbourne had retreated to put out the rest of the food platters. His hair was smart with flyaway strands from a hectic morning, his smart trousers were still freshly pressed and clean despite the fact the apartment kitchen was covered in flour and melted chocolate. His white shirt with its sleeves rolled to his elbows was free from pollen. She smiled at him and he smiled back tenderly. Melbourne’s person shone with domesticity and exhilaration in harmonious measure, something that made Victoria’s heart melt and her legs feel like jelly. She looked at him and saw home and adventure at the same time. Her heart beat wildly as though it were the first time they had smiled at one another.

“Yes, perhaps one day,” Victoria answered not looking away from Melbourne or letting her smile drop. “After all, I do already have a veil.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> As you may have noticed, it's been well over a week since I last updated. I didn't want to say this, especially since there's only one chapter to go, but unfortunately, this work is currently on hiatus.
> 
> When I started this work I didn't expect for things in my personal life to change so rapidly and, as such, the quality of my writing has not been to my standard. I swapped quality for quantity which was a mistake and I should have enforced the hiatus a few weeks ago. 
> 
> The changes in my circumstances have left me tired and unattached to this work for the time being as I'm trying to concentrate on other things. There's nothing bad happening here at home, in fact, I'm very happy, but this fic has fallen away as a priority. 
> 
> I can promise you that the last chapter will be posted - I don't know when, but I can assure you it will materialise when things have calmed down. 
> 
> I hope you understand my current circumstances and won't mind waiting. In the time being, you can message me here, on tumblr (I'm user annaobyrne / raouldechagny.co.vu), or on the For the love of Vicbourne facebook group - please message me for my username first if you wish to contact me there, however!
> 
> Thank you all and much love to you! xo


	10. A Last Minute Change of Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria finds her emotions becoming something more than she expected as Mrs Liddell's charity party gets under way and Melbourne is happy to go along with it.

Couples were peppered through the shop’s sea of pink.

Mrs Liddell and her husband laughed in unison; throwing their heads back as though their laughter were too big for their tiny bodies. Emily stopped serving customers whenever possible to kiss Palmerston, who watched her float around the shop floor with a dozy smile and soft eyes. Flora and Albert sat side by side at a table, drinking decaf tea and occasionally pressing their hands to Flora’s stomach to feel their baby wriggling. Harriet was sitting in Sutherland’s lap, letting him feed her strawberries from the fuchsia bowl on the table beside them. Emma and her husband Edward were admiring the bouquets in the windows.

Mothers and their children ate marshmallows and coloured in the pages of monochrome colouring books. Teenage lovers shared things they found funny on their phones, and even dogs played together in pairs; Dash rolled happily on the ground with a Chihuahua named Butternut.

Victoria and Melbourne stood behind their tills, glancing at one another in gaps between customers - some deposited a few coins into the collection tubs by the doors as they left. The tell-tale clattering of coins made Mrs Liddell turn her head every time and beam in thanks. When the donations began to peter out, Mrs Jenkins waved the charity pots in front of leaving customers, who gingerly deposited their loose change in the vain hope it would satisfy her, and she would stop glaring.

“What a charming event,” Emma told Mrs Liddell with a smile. “You must be so very proud of what you have achieved this morning.”

“I am proud of myself for what I have achieved in fundraising, yes,” Mrs Liddell admitted. “But all that has been achieved here today is of Mr Melbourne and Miss Hanover’s doing.”  
  
Emily coughed pointedly as she walked by with a tray of empty glasses balancing on one hand. “I designed the bunting above the doors,” she said proudly, pointing up with her free hand.

Sanguine bunting with an alternating floral and striped design hung with silent self-importance. The garland waved in the wind as the doors opened and closed, staring down at the shop and those who inhabited it, barely noticed by customers coming and going.

Mrs Liddell chuckled and tore her eyes away from Emily’s handiwork. “This was Mr Melbourne and Miss Hanover’s doing with some help,” she amended. Emily winked, satisfied, and carried on taking the dirty glasses to the sink.

Emma kissed Mrs Liddell on the cheek and continued to mingle with ease. Her natural charm and elegance drew friends and strangers to her alike. It appeared she had a story for every occasion and every type of person she met. Parenting advice tailored for either new or experienced parents, recipes for keen bakers, descriptions of quaint locations for those fond of quiet getaways, and more macabre tales for those with a taste for darker things.

“…And that’s when he caught his leg in the fence, still holding the beehive!” Emma said, concluding one anecdote about a Professor she once knew. It was met with an eruption of a laughter from the group that had gathered around her.

Even Albert snickered. “I guess you could say that he was stung by his own argument.”

The joke was met with only a few mildly tickled titters. Flora squeezed Albert’s shoulder with an amused smile and kissed his cheek. His own smile returned.

“All of that just to prove a tiny point in an argument?” Harriet asked, delighted.

“Naturally!” Emma smirked. “He was a very proud man who couldn’t stand to lose.”

As more laughter rippled from the group, people who had been left out of the original conversation began to turn towards Emma. Victoria raised her eyebrows at the chorus of chortles that followed Emma’s anecdote. Melbourne, who knew Emma well enough to know which story she was telling at any given time, smiled fondly to himself and quietly admired her natural charisma.

“Albert,” Emma grinned. “It’s lovely to see you again. Where is your brother? I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of meeting him.”

“Neither have I,” Harriet interrupted. “I should certainly like to meet him too.”

Albert, accustomed to people asking him about his brother rather than about himself, gave them a reassuring look. “He is on his way,” he told them. “He and our father have been visiting our Uncle Leopold in Belgium. His flight arrived back in London this morning.”

“Will your father be joining us as well?” Harriet asked, wrapping her arm around Sutherland and resting her head on his shoulder. The pearl and diamond necklace around her neck dazzled in the sunlight as she breathed.

“Unfortunately, no,” Albert sighed. “He has decided to go straight home to Germany.”

“What a shame,” Victoria said as she joined them at the table. Mrs Jenkins now stood behind the café till to give Victoria’s swollen and aching feet a rest. “I haven’t seen Uncle Ernest since Leopold held dinner in his London house.”

“Father is getting old, Victoria,” Albert explained. “He doesn’t wish to travel as much as he used to.”

Flora sipped on her decaf green tea, peering over the cup at Victoria’s perfect posture, neat up-do, and the way she folded her hands in her lap. Her dainty ski-slope nose and pointed chin created the perfect profile. She noted to herself how Victoria looked so much like her mother.

“I haven’t seen or heard from your mother in quite some time,” Flora said to her attentively. “I trust nothing is wrong?”

Quiet swept over the small group and Sutherland excused himself, sensing the rising tension. He instead went to talk with Melbourne to appreciate his flowers. Harriet straightened her back and Albert breathed so deep that whiskers from his moustache wafted in the mini breeze. Palmerston perked up in his chair and, for the first time that day, Emily was not the only person who had his attention.

Victoria herself was stiff like cardboard and threatened to crumple at any moment. “My mother has secretly married John Conroy,” she announced, her voice a void where feelings about her mother came to die.

“Then I pray that she has every happiness,” Flora said cautiously, pressing her lips against her tea cup and staring down at the jade liquid.

“Don’t pray too hard,” Victoria snorted. “Not only has she married a man who has caused me so much unhappiness, she accused my darling M of physically hurting me after my fall in the park…and then showed she cared more for my unborn child’s safety than she did for mine, her own child.”

Harriet shook her head, her face solemn. “How awful for you.”

“I am a better woman for all her mistakes,” Victoria said, painting on a smile. “Through her I have learned what to do and what not to do, but most importantly, I have learned which values I hold dear to me. For that and nothing more, I thank her.”

Melbourne listened intently from across the room as he guided Sutherland around his bouquet of white orchids and stargazer lilies. The pride he had in her bubbled further within him.

“Auntie always has been very…” Albert began, searching his brain for the right word. “Headstrong.”

Victoria scoffed. “That is one way to describe her…but I can think of a few stronger words than that…”

“Don’t let her get to you, Victoria,” Emma instructed. “You have everything and everyone you will ever need right here in this room.”

It was true, and Victoria was acutely aware of this. She found herself sat around a table in a shop she co-owned, with friends and family who supported her, a boyfriend who loved and adored her, and strangers who found comfort in the place she put her heart and soul into. Happiness swelled in her heart like an uncontrollable balloon which pushed at her seams. It would not matter if she unravelled at this moment as she let her emotions go, for the people around her would carefully fix her back up and love her just the same. She mentally blamed the sudden swell of emotions on her hormones.

Victoria stood, tears brimming in her eyes and wearing a smile that was too broad for her petite frame to look natural. “I should get back to work. I fear that Mrs Jenkins will soon start to rob customers for charity donations.”

She walked to her counter with her head held high and gently touched Mrs Jenkins on the shoulder, still smiling. Victoria said something unintelligible and the two women laughed.

Emily raised her eyebrows at her brother as she walked by him. “Is Victoria feeling okay? I’ve never seen her like that with Mrs Jenkins, ever.”

Melbourne watched Victoria grind coffee beans and occasionally throw her head over her shoulder to join in the conversation with a customer and Mrs Jenkins. He nodded and traced the etchings his son had left him in the wood of his counter top with a loving smile. “She’s doing just fine.”

Morning melted into afternoon in numerous cups of coffee and slices of cake. Bright blue sky and frigid autumn air dissipated to overbearing sunlight masked by drifting dusky clouds. Deep purple crocuses were forcing their way up through the soil of the planters by the café and florist doors, adding a festival of colour to the dying pale peonies. The white exterior of the shop reflected the sun’s rays and gleamed like a precious jewel, drawing in the eyes of people walking by.

“Perhaps we ought to strip the paint back to its original brickwork,” Victoria had once wondered aloud. “It would look far more rustic and characteristic that way.”

Inside, laughter was not far away from this small corner of the street. It drowned out the melodious piano instrumentals coming from the speakers wired to the corners of the shop, which had been installed recently at Emily’s suggestion. Fallen dust and plaster was still wedged in the tight folds of the walls, leaving chalky marks on dark clothes of anyone unlucky enough to brush past it.

As the afternoon wore on with ceaseless energy, the party at Espressaroma began to fade gracefully into memories.

Flora quietly grabbed Skerret’s arm as she passed with an empty tray. “I don’t want to alarm anyone,” she said softly through gritted teeth, her eyebrows raised. “But I think I’m going into labour and Albert isn’t here and I can’t get hold of him. My due date isn’t for another few weeks and I’m scared.”

“Okay,” Skerret breathed, putting down her tray. Sweat pricked at her forehead and underarms. “I’ll tell Victoria what’s happening and we'll call for an ambulance. Since she’s the closest family member here, she can go with you to the hospital until we can contact Albert.”

“Hurry,” Flora hissed.

Skerret gave Flora a reassuring smile over her shoulder as she calmly but swiftly moved towards the café counter. She placed a hand on Victoria’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, both women staring at Flora as she hunched over the table, her hands visibly shaking.

“Where did Albert go? I don’t remember him leaving,” Victoria murmured, eyes wide as she scanned the shop and the faces of the remaining crowd.

“She didn’t say,” Skerret said apologetically.

Victoria moved with the stealth of a cat toward Melbourne and had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his ear. “Flora’s in labour,” she told him, grabbing her phone from her pocket. “I’m phoning an ambulance and going to the hospital with her. Hold the fort here and tell Albert what’s happening if you see him?”

“Of course,” he assured her, taking a glimpse at Flora’s furrowed brows and twisted mouth. “Good luck.”

The ambulance arrived within minutes. As the nose of the vehicle turned the corner, Melbourne clapped his hands with authoritative command and made all eyes land on him. He stood tall and began to speak, thanking everyone for coming, thanking Mrs Liddell for using Espressaroma for the backdrop of her function, and praising Mrs Liddell’s determination in her charitable endeavours. In the distraction, Skerret and Victoria carefully and silently helped Flora to her feet and out to the waiting ambulance.

“Albert,” Flora said to Skerret, squeezing her hand. “Find him and tell him what’s happening.”

“Do you know where he went?” Skerret asked, following Flora and Victoria to the back of the ambulance. Her hand felt cold when Flora let go to board the vehicle.

“To pick up his brother,” Flora said hurriedly as she was helped into the ambulance. “Ernst’s car broke down, but Albert didn’t say where he was. Take my phone,” she added, passing it to Victoria who passed it down to Skerret. “The password is sixteen-twelve-sixteen.”

“Your wedding day,” Skerret said, reassuring Flora that she would remember the code. Taking a step back from the ambulance to let the paramedic close the door on Flora and Victoria, Skerret punched the password into the phone. She scrolled through the contacts until she came across Ernst’s number. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she urged as she made the call and watched the ambulance drive out of sight.

“Dearest Sister-In-Law,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Am I taking up too much of your darling husband’s time?”

“It’s Skerret, actually. Flora’s on her way to the hospital – she’s gone into labour. Tell Albert to get there as soon as possible. She’s okay and she has Victoria with her, but obviously she really wants Albert to be with her too.”

“Oh…thank you. I’ll let him know.” Ernst hung up the phone with a sly smile and a cheeky laugh.

“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have caught a taxi. Is something the matter?” he asked, taking in Ernst’s wavering smile and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Is Flora okay?”

“I do believe, Little Brother, that you are about to become a father.”

* * *

The screams from the labour ward echoed through the corridor and lingered in the waiting room. A receptionist raised her voice casually above the noise and didn’t even flinch when one young woman yelled out a stream of foul curses and cruel insults. A man across the waiting room coughed awkwardly into his hand and a woman pretending to read a magazine languidly turned the page with a lick of her fingers.

An acrid smell of disinfectant and soap was soaked into the walls. A little girl wrinkled her nose as she walked in with her heavily pregnant mother who flared her nostrils.

Ernst bounced his left leg as he sat in his chair, then stood up, paced the waiting room with his hands behind his back, and sat back down again. He bounced his right leg this time and snapped his head towards the ward as he heard Flora scream, “Albert, make it stop!”

“Do we go in there?” Ernst asked, standing up once more and wandering across the room.

“Absolutely not,” Victoria said, pulling on Ernst’s sleeve as he walked back in front of her, forcing him back in his chair. “Oh, sit still! Anyone would think you were the one having a baby, not Albert.”

“I’m having my first nephew,” Ernst argued. “This might be the closest thing I ever get to having a baby.”

Victoria rolled her eyes and took Ernst’s hand in hers. “Don’t be dramatic. You won’t get the attention you want from me. This is Albert and Flora’s day, not yours.”

Ernst squeezed her hand with a laugh and a wink. “You know me too well, Cousin.”

Another scream from down the hall made Victoria instinctively put a hand to her stomach. “Why would anyone go through that willingly? The miracle of birth sounds horrific.”

“You’ve got ages before you need to worry about that,” Ernst reassured her. “And you don’t have to go through it if you don’t want to.”

“This is the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make and every day I don’t make it…it gets that much harder,” Victoria admitted with a sigh, leaning her head against Ernst’s shoulder. “There are so many more reasons not to have this baby than there are to have it, and yet…yet I can’t bring myself book an appointment at the clinic every time I try to do so.”

“Maybe you should talk to your Mr Melbourne about it?”

“I already have,” Victoria sighed. “But he says he’ll support me whatever happens.”

“No,” Ernst said, knocking Victoria off his shoulder. “I mean maybe you should talk to him now? He’s walking up the corridor.” He gave Melbourne a small wave as he came into the waiting room and sat on Victoria’s other side.

Victoria leaned over to kiss Melbourne hello. “What are you doing here? What about the charity part- “

“It was a remarkable success,” Melbourne smiled. “Mrs Liddell and her husband have gone home incredibly happy with how the day went and how much money they raised. Emily, Skerret and Mrs Jenkins are tidying up the shop, and everything is under control. Emma suggested I should come and see you.”

“I’m glad you took her advice,” Victoria admitted. “We need to talk.”

Footsteps cut her short as Albert came into the waiting room, beaming from ear to ear, cheeks flushed and sporting a perspired forehead. “I’m a father!” he announced, pulling his brother up for a hug. “He’s beautiful. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“Congratulations,” Ernst grinned, patting Albert’s back. “When do we get to see him?”

“Soon,” Albert promised, letting go of Ernst. “And thank you, Victoria, for coming with Flora to the hospital.”

“My pleasure,” she said softly. “And congratulations, again. You should get back in there though…I’m sure Flora still wants you to be with her.”

Albert nodded and went back to the delivery room with a spring in his step. Ernst followed him a few minutes later with a cup of coffee for Albert and a glass of water for Flora, giving Victoria a knowing look that screamed ‘ _talk to him_ ’ as he left the waiting room.

Victoria sighed happily and took Melbourne’s hand – she smiled broader as he kissed her knuckles.

“So,” he said delicately. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Oh…it was just more baby stuff. We really ought to make a decision or nature is going to make it for us.”

Melbourne kissed her wrist this time. “It’s a tough choice, I know. But maybe we should talk about this again at home? I’m not sure I want to make any more decisions regarding my children, or possible children, in a hospital unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Understandable,” Victoria agreed. “We can talk later…but we have to make a decision today because we’re running out of time.”

“We will,” Melbourne said with confidence, but his eyes betrayed him as uncertain.

* * *

A tiny gurgle came from Baby Bertie’s lips. A bubble formed at the corner of his mouth and popped as he was placed in Victoria’s nervous arms. Bertie’s light wispy hair stuck up at odd angles and his feet wiggled with contentment. He looked up from his blanket cocoon with large, tired blue eyes and lifted a teeny hand toward Victoria’s face.

“He recognises his Auntie Victoria already,” Flora mused with laugh.

“He’s beautiful,” Melbourne whispered. “He has your eyes, Albert.”

“But thankfully he has his mother’s hair,” Albert joked, running his fingers through his own that he was convinced was prematurely thinning.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Flora said, looking to Albert. “You have beautiful hair.”

Victoria pulled her gaze away from Bertie, a small smile forming on her face. She let her eyes settle on Flora and her knotted hair, her ashen skin, the dark circles under her sparkling eyes, and her serene smile. An hour ago, she was screaming and crying and now…now it was different. Victoria subconsciously rocked Bertie from side to side as she tried to make sense of Flora’s sudden change in mood.

“You look so happy,” she told Flora. “You were so…so…panicked, and stressed, and pained, and goodness knows what else earlier. But now…”

“I am happy,” Flora said through a yawn. “Exhausted but happy.”

Victoria stared down at little Bertie, who was blissfully unaware of the trauma his mother had just experienced. He closed his eyes and stretched lazily. “But all that pain…”

“Was worth it,” Flora interrupted. “I’d do it all again in a heartbeat…He’s the most precious person in the universe.”

Bertie pursed his lips together, yawned, opened his eyes fully and turned his face to Victoria. He lifted a hand again. Victoria tilted her head, finding herself smiling more and more.

“Hi Bertie,” she said tenderly. “Are you trying to wave at your Auntie Victoria?” she shifted Bertie carefully to one arm, so she could wave back. “You’re the smallest thing I’ve ever seen.” Her breath hitched in her throat as Bertie grabbed her index finger. His miniature, chubby fingers barely fit around Victoria’s slender digit. Behind her, Melbourne squeezed her shoulders, he too finding himself breathless.

“William?” Victoria said with a raspy voice, still staring down at the baby who was now refusing to close his eyes.

“Yeah?” he said, reaching over to touch Bertie’s warm, rosy cheek.

She paused to swallow the lump forming in her throat. “He’s so small…how can anything this small be scary or bad?” Victoria craned her neck to look Melbourne in his warm, golden eyes. “I think I want to have to have our baby. I think we can do this.”

Melbourne smiled and dropped a kiss on Victoria’s temple. “Yeah…I think we can too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> I'm sorry it's taken me so long to continue this piece - life has been hectic in the last ten months or so and I've had very little time to write anything. 
> 
> Because of that, this is not written as well as I wanted it to be, nor is it strictly the plot I wanted it to have. Either way, I hope you somewhat enjoy this "last" chapter and you excuse any/all mistakes I've made - I couldn't bear to leave this work unfinished or orphaned.


	11. Epilogue: Every Ending is a New Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years have passed in the blink of an eye. Things have changed fast for Victoria and Melbourne, personally and in business, and for their families, and it has all been for the better. But there's still one change that Victoria is determined to make.

_ **Combined Café and Florist opens second shop in London.** _

Espressaroma has expanded to High Street North in North London. Like its sister outlet that first opened six years ago, Espressaroma creatively combines a café with a florist.

Owned and run by William Lamb-Melbourne and long-term partner Victoria Hanover, the hybrid store quickly became a fan favourite amongst Londoners.

William first opened his Mayfair florist in 2000 but had been struggling to make ends meet from 2009 after the tragic death of his then-wife and the death of their son two years earlier.

“I found solace in growing fruits, vegetables, and flowers in my allotment,” he told our reporter. “I couldn’t bear to give up the allotment and shop that brought me so much joy.”

Victoria bought the café next door to William’s florist in 2016 and approached William to merge their two businesses not long after.

“I bought the shop totally on a whim,” she admitted to us. “I wanted to try something new and it turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made.”

The business relationship quickly became a more personal one and the couple welcomed their first child in March 2018. Despite juggling a new-born and a thriving business, the couple were also able to expand their online presence by taking click-and-collect bouquet orders online.

William and Victoria first went into talks about a second outlet in December 2018 but struggled to find the right location. They eventually settled a rent agreement in High Street North in 2020 and began to refurbish shortly after.

“This business has been demanding work,” Victoria said. “Combining a café with a florist was a huge gamble but we’re so thankful it paid off. We couldn’t have gone this far without the initial financial support of my uncle and the continued support of the people of London.”

“We’d like to thank everyone that has come to our shop in the last six years,” William agreed. “Whether they bought something or not. Word-of-mouth has been vital to us.”

The second outlet opened on Monday with William’s sister, Emily Palmerston, as manager. Emily had been working as a waitress and barista in the Mayfair branch from 2017 and was trained by her brother in floristry.

Emily told us that she was “so excited” to be taking on a managerial role in the family business. “But I am going to miss my little niece running around the shop floor,” she added with a laugh.

For further details about Espressaroma, visit espressaroma.com

* * *

 The glass squeaked as Victoria dusted. She straightened the gilded frame on the wall, lining it up with the Best New Business 2017 award with a proud smile and resisted the urge to trace her name on the newspaper and risk smudging the glass again.

A line of red crayon at waist height caught her eye. Victoria followed it down to the skirting board where it culminated in a scribble and a line of hearts. A smile pricked at the corner of her mouth, dispelling any kind of annoyance before it came to fruition. Baking soda, warm water, and a cloth melted the crayon away into nothing within moments.

Victoria narrowly missed tripping on a doll’s house as she discarded the vase of dying yellow roses on the mantelpiece and replaced them with peach peonies. An aging Dash looked up sleepily from his bed and then settled once again.

The front door clicked, followed by heavy footsteps, the light running of a second pair of steps, and the rattling of keys.

“Mummy!”

“Alice!” Victoria laughed, opening her arms for her daughter to run to. She kissed Melbourne briefly as he stepped through the door. “Did you have fun at the park?”

“Loads!” Alice told her, pulling away to climb on the sofa. “I pushed Daddy on the swing.”

Melbourne grinned and put his arm around Victoria’s shoulder. “And you pushed me so high that I was worried I was going to fly off into space.”

“That’s impossible,” Alice said matter-of-factly. “You can only get to space in a rocket.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I should’ve known that,” Melbourne said sagely. “But you did push me very high.”

Victoria chuckled and took a seat next to Alice. She cuddled up next to her daughter and let her pat her swollen belly.

“Hello, little brother,” Alice whispered.

“He says hello,” Victoria informed her after a short pause to let the unborn baby ‘speak’. “He also told me to tell you to stop drawing on the walls.”

“No, he didn’t,” Alice pouted, her thick bottom lip protruding over her top lip. Her pigtails swung like pendulums whenever she moved her wise-for-her-age head. On occasion, Melbourne thought she could make her eyes sparkle on a whim to get whatever she wanted, like she was threatening to do now. She pulled her lip back in to a natural position and let her warm copper eyes settle on her mother. “You don’t like my wall art,” she accused.

Victoria gasped and pressed a hand to her chest in mock hurt before pulling Alice in for a hug and kissing her forehead. “I do! But I would much prefer your art to be on paper. I’ll tell you what, to cheer you up, how would you feel about seeing your Uncle Albert and Auntie Flora today? And having a sleepover with Bertie and Arthur?”

“Yeah! Yeah! Can we go now?” Alice asked, bounding off the sofa and jumping on the spot.

“Lunch first,” Melbourne told her firmly. His smile highlighted his growing crow’s feet and wrinkling forehead. “Take off your shoes and wash your hands, please. Lunch is in half an hour.”

Alice dutifully ran to the bathroom with a smile plastered across her porcelain face.

Four-year-old Bertie was in her class at school and proud to be the oldest one there. He paraded around the classroom with an air of authority he picked up from his father and a cheeky demeanour borrowed from his Uncle Ernst. Alice was able to make Bertie laugh like no one else; she pulled faces at him from across the room and whispered jokes in his ear until he squawked with glee. When other children teased Alice for reading at lunch instead of playing house, Bertie sat with her and asked her questions about her book. Sometimes he would ask the class if they could play shopkeeper instead, since no one was as good at pretending to be a shopkeeper as Alice.

Two-year-old Arthur liked to suck his thumb (a habit his parents were attempting to stamp out) and looked up at his older brother and cousin with fascination. He liked to ask why and climb on the furniture, play with Alice’s hair and football with Bertie. Though he was too young to understand most of Bertie and Alice’s conversations, he was happy to sit, nod, and pretend until he got bored and the lure of multi-coloured building blocks became too much.

The whooshing of the sink kicked in as Alice turned the bathroom tap. Melbourne sighed with a smile and sat beside Victoria, leaning in for a kiss on the cheek. She turned her head swiftly and caught his lips with hers instead, both laughing.

“I hope you’re not too tired for dinner tonight,” Victoria told him as he stifled a yawn.

“No, I’m looking forward to it,” he insisted. “It’ll be nice to have some time alone together.”

“Good.” Victoria stopped and pressed a hand to her belly, a smile blooming like a rosebud in spring. “He’s kicking again,” she laughed, guiding Melbourne’s hand to feel too.

Melbourne let himself feel the gentle kicking and then softly tapped his fingertips back in return. “I think he’s going to be more energetic than Alice.”

“Then God help us all,” Victoria said darkly, unable to keep her smile at bay.

After lunch, Victoria took Alice and her overnight bag downstairs. Alice waved goodbye to customers, Skerret, and Mrs Jenkins and announced with joy to everyone she was off to have a sleepover. There was only a short walk to Albert and Flora’s house, and Alice held tight to her mother’s hand the whole way. She let go as soon as Albert opened the front door and ran inside, following the scent of poster paint and playdough to where Bertie and Arthur were playing. She came back a moment later with a sheepish smile to kiss Victoria goodbye.

“Thank you for looking after her,” Victoria said to Albert with an accompanying hug. “It means a lot.”

“Flora and I are happy to have her,” he reassured her. “She, Bertie and Arthur get on like you, Ernst and I used to as children. Do you remember?”

“Fondly,” she said wistfully. “I have to go,” she added before Albert could invite her in for a sit down and a drink. “I’m giving Emily a surprise visit in the second shop to see how she’s getting on. Hopefully that anteater of a husband of hers hasn’t stuck his nose in too much.”

Albert chuckled and raised his voice over the sound of Flora reprimanding Bertie for getting paint on the floor and in Arthur’s hair. “You still dislike Palmerston?”

“He’s a nuisance,” Victoria huffed. “But I can’t deny the fact he genuinely loves Emily and he makes her happy too. I’ll just have to learn to live with him.”

“I’m sure you will manage,” Albert grinned. “I take it you are still having that talk with Mr Melbourne tonight?”

“Yes,” she said. “I will tell you all about it tomorrow when we come to pick Alice up,” she promised.

“Good luck!” Albert called after her as she headed back down the street.

* * *

High Street North was buzzing with activity on this Saturday afternoon in July. The glass doors to Espressaroma were wide open and inviting, and friendly chatter floated around the shop. Victoria’s nose tingled with the familiar scent of freshly ground coffee beans and jasmine flowers. Emily stopped wrapping a customer’s bouquet and enthusiastically waved from behind her till as Victoria entered.

The customer took his flowers and left, nodding with a smile towards Victoria. “It’s nice to see you, Miss Hanover,” he said as he passed her.

“What a pleasant surprise!” Emily said, offering Victoria a seat behind the counter. Emily poured her guest a glass of water once she was seated. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to see how you were getting on,” Victoria said, looking around the busy shop. “It looks like you and your staff are coping pretty well.” She watched as Francatelli served a family at their table, bringing coffee and cakes on a tray with a smile and an extra strawberry each for the children.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Emily said, gesturing for Brodie to stop cleaning tables and take over on the bouquets instead.

“It’s not all fun and games though,” she reminded her. “Do you mind if I see your takings so far?” Victoria asked. “Then after that I just want to have a quick look around and I’ll get out of your hair.”

Emily opened the finances spreadsheet on the tablet she kept behind the counter. “The only day we didn’t hit our target was Wednesday,” she informed Victoria as she handed over the tablet. “But Henry and I are confident that we’ll make up the difference over the rest of the weekend, if by some miracle we haven’t made it up today.”

“Not to worry, it’s all looking good for a first week,” Victoria said with a satisfied smile as she read through the spreadsheet.

Victoria’s brief inspection of the shop took less than ten minutes and she took time after to teach Brodie how to reflex roses. On his first few attempts at peeling back the petals, he ripped them or yanked them off completely. Victoria was tender as she explained, holding her rose with care as she pulled back half of the petals. Emily hovered in the background and took notes.

“Room temperature flowers work best,” Victoria told him. “Don’t try doing this with flowers that have come straight from the cold room. Keep practicing and you’ll soon get it. It took me ages to finally do it right and do so consistently. I think M was close to losing the will to live,” she laughed.

“Are you still having your date night tonight? Do you want me to watch Alice?” Emily interrupted.

“Yes and no,” Victoria said apologetically. “I already dropped her off at Albert and Flora’s. I couldn’t remember if it was your turn to have your four this week.”

Emily shook her head. “Peter said he’d look after them for another week whilst I get to grips with the shop. It was kind of him, but I miss my kids. It would’ve been nice to see them this week.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that,” Victoria said earnestly.

“I’ll see them next week though,” Emily said hopefully. “Anyway, about this date you’re having with my brother tonight…is tonight the night you’re going to do it?”

Victoria let a smile flash across her face. “Albert was eager to ask me about that too…but yes, tonight’s the night.”

“Does William suspect anything?” Emily asked with wild eyes, the anticipation building up inside of her.

Victoria swallowed her sudden nerves and the growing sickness in her stomach, though whether this was caused by her anxiety or the restlessness of her unborn son, she wasn’t sure. “No, I believe he doesn’t know a thing.”

* * *

 An ivory tablecloth was draped over one of the café tables in the original Espressaroma. A single candle was burning softly in the middle and shrouded the table in a subdued ochre glow. Glasses of fizzy grape juice made adequate replacements for wine and the sharp scent of raspberries clung to the summer air. Dash whimpered for a taste of his owners’ dinner beneath the table. Garlands of roses, orchids, and leaves were strung up by the ceiling and basking in what was left of the daylight.

Stars began to prick at the sky as the sun retreated, but those studded diamonds began to disappear too as the London street lamps pinged to life.

“They sky gets so romantic in the summer,” Victoria mused, admiring the purple and blue hues that painted the sky in multi-angled brushstrokes. “I’m so glad we got to do this before our second little bud arrives.” She turned back to Melbourne in her chair and ran her index finger around the rim of her glass.

“Me too,” Melbourne told her, leaning over the table to take her free hand. The candle light turned the gardenias he had placed in Victoria’s hair a light apricot – he beamed whenever she moved her head and flowers became their original bright white and the scent drifted in his direction. The flame made her cheeks flush. “You’re so beautiful,” he said deftly. “The gardenias make your eyes look brighter.”

“I think that’s because they’re looking at you,” Victoria retorted, squeezing M’s hand.

“You flatter me.” He kissed the back of her hand, then her knuckles, then her fingers. With every chaste kiss, her smile began to drop, and she instead bit her bottom lip, her brows furrowed. “Is there something wrong?” M asked her, suddenly concerned.

Victoria gave him her other hand, both of their arms hovering inches over the table and their elbows close to landing in their plates. “No, nothing is wrong,” she admitted. “On the contrary, things are perfect…which is why I’m so nervous.”

Melbourne squeezed her hands again in encouragement. “What do you mean?”

“We have a beautiful daughter and another baby on the way, our business is flourishing further every day and we’re happy…things couldn’t be more perfect. But…”

“But?” Melbourne raised his eyebrows.

“Shhh,” Victoria urged, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I love you. You’re the only man I could ever want, and you have my heart. But,” she repeated, letting herself smile. “There’s something I want to ask you…and since you have never asked me…I’m not sure you will say yes.”

Birds cawed outside and streaked across the sky, dancing together in a large flock and disappeared against the inky twilight.

“Ask me,” Melbourne implored in a hushed tone.

“William,” she began, resisting the urge to look down at the table. Victoria kept her head straight and her eyes locked on Melbourne, doing her best to ignore how fast her heart was beating. “Will you marry me?”

An eternal second dragged by and Victoria held her breath, scared to move even the tiniest muscle. M stayed quiet and got up from his seat, still holding Victoria’s hands so she had no choice but to follow him. Her palms were sweating, and Melbourne held firm. He sighed and stared at Victoria’s naked ring finger on her left hand and then looked to his own.

The birds came back, flying like waves in the sky and nestled on a group of nearby trees and streetlamps.

“Yes,” he said with a grin, pulling her in for a hug. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

Victoria wrapped her arms around Melbourne’s shoulders, her cheeks sore from the breadth of her smile. She pulled back a moment later to reveal a tear running down her face. M brushed it away, smiling too. He trailed his thumb over her cheekbone and cupped her face with a gentle hand. The deep blue of her eyes sparkled with delight as she gazed back at him and saw a further future in him. Melbourne leaned close until their noses touched and slid his hand in Victoria’s hair, knocking the gardenias to the floor.

Their lips brushed together, the taste of fizzy grape juice tingled on their skin. The butterflies in their stomachs fluttered as though this was the first time they had touched. With only the dying light from the sunset and the calm flickering of the candle to illuminate their lips, Melbourne kissed Victoria with sweet reverence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for being patient during my hiatus. I can't always respond to every comment and that was especially true during my time away, but I read and appreciate every comment that's left.
> 
> I can't wait to get back in to the swing of writing again so I can start bigger and better fics for this darling ship. There's plenty of ideas in my head that I can't wait to share!
> 
> (As always, apologies for any mistakes in this chapter...)
> 
> But thank you once again for reading this series and I hope to see you all back here again soon! xo
> 
> tumblr: annaobyrne / raouldechagny.co.vu


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